The Quiet Hives: A Winter in the Bee Yard

In winter, a colony of bees doesn't sleep. The bees pull together around their queen and shiver to keep her warm, eating their honey a little at a time, and all you can do is wait, watch, and help where you can. The Quiet Hives is a solo journaling game for one player. You keep four beehives at the top of an old orchard on a hillside called Sallow Rise, through twelve weeks of winter. Each week you draw two cards. The suit tells you which hive you're tending, the rank tells you what happens to it, and a prompt tells you what to write about: the hives, the orchard, and your own quiet winter. Each hive has Stores , the honey that has to last it until spring. Cold weeks, storms, mice, and damp wear them down. You have a few blocks of winter feed and some warm days when you can move honey between hives, and you'll have to decide who gets them. A hive that runs out goes silent. At the end of each phase of winter, you go out to the yard and tell the bees your news, as beekeepers have done for a very long time. What you need A standard deck of 52 playing cards (or the dice-only method inside) One six-sided die A notebook and pen, or a keyboard, or a voice recorder About two to three hours per winter, which splits neatly into three sittings What's inside Simple rules: four hives (one per suit), a Stores track for each, a small supply of Feed, and six card effects (Warm Day, Cold, Still, Trouble, the Queen, Weather) 39 card prompts: a full 13-card table for each of Early Winter, Deep Winter, and Late Winter Setup tables: why you keep bees, who shares the winter with you, your bee yard, and a temperament table for each hive Silent hives: a d6 table for the day a hive goes quiet, and a d6 table for visiting an empty box Telling the Bees: a d6 table of news to tell the hives three times each winter Spring: a first-inspection roll for each surviving hive and five endings, from a full yard to a quiet one Rules for playing another winter with the same yard A full example of play Accessibility notes: ways to play without writing, a dice-only method with no deck, large print, screen readers, a short eight-week winter, and gentler or harder settings A one-page quick reference (setup, the weekly steps, card effects, and the spring check) A printable yard sheet with four hive cards, Stores tracks, and a twelve-week log Content notes and guidance for setting your own limits Format A self-contained HTML file (open it in any web browser, or print it with its built-in US Letter print layout) and a PDF. No internet connection, fonts, or apps needed. Tone Slow, wintry, gentle, and sometimes sad. Not every hive makes it through every winter, and the game lets that matter. This is a story game, not a beekeeping manual. Content notes: the deaths of bee colonies, and grief; an elderly person in a care home and growing old; loneliness; cold weather and a small fall on ice (no injury required); insects, including dead bees (no stings are described); mice and mould. AI disclosure: The text of this game was drafted with generative AI and checked so every table is complete and playable. The cover art is an SVG drawing that was also written by AI. The setting, characters, rules, and prompts are original to this game. Sallow Rise, Brenn, and everyone named in the game are fictional. "Telling the bees" is a traditional folk custom. Printing for your own personal play is welcome. Please don't redistribute the file; point friends here instead. Published by Jarvis Ross. Questions: jarviss.ross@gmail.com