Dance of the bees: A board game promotes environmental awareness
Mr Lehmann, how did you come up with the idea for the «Dance of the Bees» board game?
I've been developing board games for a few years now and the bee game started - as so often - with a picture book from the library about bees. Picture books give me the best inspiration and this one was particularly beautifully illustrated. I was so fascinated by the bees' way of life that I started to develop a board game from it.
It should be a themed game with processes and activities that are as close as possible to the life of bees. Children and adults should also be able to rediscover exciting aspects of the bee world while playing. I'm a geography teacher and I can't get rid of the educational aspect (laughs).
What does that mean in concrete terms?
In addition to collecting and growing, the game also focuses on pollinating the blossoms of various plants such as flowers, vegetables, berries and fruit.
That's what the board game is all about:
Welcome to the realm of bees! You take over the management of a bee colony and try to use your workers wisely so that the colony has enough food. In addition, the bee colony should also grow and pollinate as many flowers as possible and store their nectar and pollen in the honeycombs. Without the pollination work of bees, there would hardly be any berries, fruit, so many vegetables and the variety of flowers.
However, there are also dangers lurking from voracious animals, so that individual bees also have to be used as guards. For defence against bacteria and fungi, resin (propolis) can be collected from the forest and used to line the honeycombs.
Now a race against time begins, because a bee year passes quickly and only those who are diligent and have a large bee colony with enough stored honey will survive the coming winter!
Players: 1 to 4 from 10 years
Playing time: 45 to 60 minutes
Developing your own game sounds complicated. How do you go about it?
You need an exciting theme and a suitable game mechanism. In this case, the so-called worker placement mechanism was the perfect choice.
We are more willing to protect what we understand and love.
The bees are the workers and carry out various tasks in their hive: Cleaning, collecting, guarding, building honeycombs etc. As soon as I have a first draft, I start the handicraft work and then a first round of testing. I do the first tests myself.
And then?
As soon as it works well, I offer it to the family. Only when it also looks reasonably good graphically do I have the prototype analysed and assessed by my colleagues. Much later, I start looking for graphic designers and illustrators to make the material visually appealing.
What do you want to achieve with your game?
I have already developed several games and I simply enjoy realising different themes in the form of a functioning game. I also believe that we humans, and children in particular, learn more long-term through play. The specific bee game project is about understanding the connections between bees, pollination and biodiversity, among other things.
It's also about environmental protection.
In any case. What we understand, appreciate and even love, we are more willing to protect. Because we all love fruit and berries, especially children. But without bees and other insects, there would be no or at least hardly any berries and fruit.
We need the bees and, increasingly, the bees need us. In short: every flower counts!
A jam or smoothie without blackberries, strawberries or plums would be really bland, wouldn't it? We need the bees and, increasingly, the bees need us. If we offer them a diverse and, if possible, continuous supply of flowers, this helps them to build up healthy populations. In short: every flower counts!
The bee game explained in the video:
Which games inspired you in the process?
The board game «Flügelschlag» certainly inspired me, it's a very nice game and the whole family, including the grandparents, enjoy playing it. There are certainly many games that have influenced me, such as «Rajas of the Ganges» or «Arche Nova».
What do you want for your game?
I hope that «Dance of the Bees» will be financed via the crowdfunding campaign and that as many people as possible will be able to enjoy it for a long time once it is delivered in autumn.
