Ruling — Apiary

You asked

Take me through getting the game ready to play, from opening the box to the first turn.

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Apiarybg-400314-en-1e

**Setup** 1. Place the board on the table, showing the side matching your player count (1-3 or 4-5) [1]. 2. Shuffle planet tiles and place them in a stack face down next to the board [1]. 3. Randomly place 1 face up on each planet spot in the planet grid with explore tokens, then return excess tokens to the box [1]. 4. Place the Queenship miniature on its starting location in the planet grid [1]. 5. Randomly place 1 face up on each of the rectangular spots on the Convert action with dance tiles, then return excess tiles to the box [1]. 6. Place dance tokens in a stack on the Convert action [1]. 7. Shuffle seed cards and place them in a deck face down on the Research action [1]. 8. Shuffle and place 1 farm tile face up on each farm tile slot, then place the rest in a stack face down on the Advance action [1]. 9. Shuffle and place 1 recruit tile face up on each recruit tile slot, then place the rest in a stack face down on the Advance action [1]. 10. Shuffle and place 1 development tile face up on each development tile slot, then place the rest in a stack face down on the Advance action [1]. 11. Shuffle and place 1 carving tile face up on each slot on the Carve action, then return excess tiles to the box [1]. 12. Place all other items—frames, fiber, pollen, water, wax, and honey—in a general supply next to the board [1]. 13. Choose a player color and gain the matching docking mat [2]. 14. Gain 1 hive mat at random; leave some space around it [2]. 15. Gain 2 starting tiles at random; choose 1 and return the other to the box [2]. 16. Place your chosen starting tile, with the non-upgraded side face up, on the designated hexes on your hive mat [2]. 17. Gain 3 player tokens in your player color [2]. 18. Randomly determine the first player, who places a player token on the 1 space of the Score Track on the board; the next player clockwise places a token on 2, then 3, and so on [2]. 19. Each player places their second player token at the beginning (0) of the Queen's Favor track and their third player token on their docking mat [2]. 20. Place 7 hibernation tokens on the designated spot on your docking mat [2]. 21. Note the starting workers listed on your starting tile; place that number of workers in the active pool on your docking mat and set their strengths to match the listed values [2]. 22. Place any remaining worker(s) next to the board near the Grow action [2]. 23. On your starting tile, for each resource spot with a green circle, place a resource token matching the highlighted resource on that spot [2]. **The First Turn** 1. If you begin your turn without any active workers (no workers on the board or on your docking mat), add one strength-1 worker to your active pool, then immediately proceed to take a place turn [3]. 2. On your turn, choose to either place or retrieve workers [3]. 3. To place: Choose 1 active worker from your docking mat and place it onto an action space on the board to perform that action [3]. 4. To retrieve: Retrieve all workers from the board and your landing area and collect income (provided you have at least 1 worker on the board and/or your landing area) [3]. 5. Immediately before and/or immediately after you place or retrieve workers, you may play any number of seed cards from your hand [3]. 6. At the end of your turn, if you have any resource tokens that do not fit on resource spots in your hive, you must discard them; gain 1 Queen's Favor for each discarded token [3]. 7. The next player clockwise takes their turn [3].

[1] RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook · p.3 · SETUP GLOBAL COMPONENTS · 10 DEVELOPMENT TILES:

[2] RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook · p.4 · PLAYER COMPONENTS

[3] RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook · p.5 · SPECIAL ABILITY: · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW · OTHER NOTES:

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 261 ms · ask 21165 ms · total 21435 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 21435 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 15, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "After the draft, each player will have 1 starting tile and 1 hive mat. In a 4-player game, this means that the 4th player will choose an item, then the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st players. The 1st player will pick their second item, followed by the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th players. Meeting the conditions on any carv", "headingPath": "AT THE END OF THE GAME, ADD ANY GAINED FROM:", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "SLIDE ALL REMAINING TILES OF THAT TYPE to the left to fill the gap (if any) and ensure the rightmost spot is open, then refill the rightmost spot with a tile (turned face up) from the top of the corresponding stack. Do this at the end of your turn unless specifically stated otherwise. STRENGTH-4 WOR", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "16 Fiber X strength (to determine the level of benefit to receive) Hibernation Token Go to stonemaiergames.com/games/apiary/media-reviews Go to stonemaiergames.com/games/apiary/rules-faq Post it on the Apiary Facebook group, on BoardGameGeek, or in the Apiary channel of the Stonemaier Discord server", "headingPath": "AT THE END OF THE GAME, ADD ANY GAINED FROM: · WANT TO WATCH A HOWTOPLAY VIDEO? · WANT TO DOWNLOAD THE RULES OR SEE THE FAQ? · HAVE A QUESTION WHILE PLAYING OR A STORY TO SHARE? · WANT TO CALCULATE AND SAVE YOUR SCORE? · NEED A REPLACEMENT PART? · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "At the End of Your Turn: Discard all resources you cannot store. For each discarded resource, you may advance 1 spot on the Queen’s Favor track. * EMPTY HIVE RULE: If you have no active workers at the start of your turn, gain one strength-1 worker for free, then take your turn. = Victory Points Duri", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "23 22 21 Apiary ends when all sectors in the Hibernation Comb for the player count are filled with hibernation tokens or when a single player places their 7th hibernation token. Each player takes 1 additional turn (including the player whose turn it was when the end of the game was triggered). Then,", "headingPath": "QUEEN'S FAVOR TRACK · END OF GAME AND SCORING 20 · DURING THE GAME, TALLY THE GAINED FROM: 14", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "ORDER OF OPERATIONS: If a worker’s strength would exceed 4 as part of performing an action (either because a strength-4 worker is bumped off an action space or for some other reason), resolve the action first (as if the worker were still strength-4) and then hibernate the worker. EXPLORE HIBERNATION", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "2 COMPONENTS 1 teaching guide 1 appendix 5 player aids 1 board (double-sided) 5 hive mats 5 docking mats 15 frames 20 workers (four per player) 1 QueenShip miniature 40 farm tiles 30 carving tiles 30 recruit tiles 29 development tiles 20 starting tiles 15 planet tiles 5 dance tiles 45 seed cards 15 ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "QueenShip Meeting the conditions on any seed cards you planted Pay printed costs to gain 1 carvin +1 + +1 CARV g 4 Any farms ( 1 each), recruits (variable ), and developments (variable ) you built GROW 4 also upgrade faction In any combination: Placing a strength-4 worker on the Advance action 8 9 1", "headingPath": "AT THE END OF THE GAME, ADD ANY GAINED FROM:", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP GLOBAL COMPONENTS · 10 DEVELOPMENT TILES:", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLAYER COMPONENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SPECIAL ABILITY: · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW · OTHER NOTES:", "sharpsignalDocId": 451}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 451 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 451 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 7, 2026 05:11

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)	AT THE END OF THE GAME, ADD ANY GAINED FROM:	p.15	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)		p.9	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)	AT THE END OF THE GAME, ADD ANY GAINED FROM: · WANT TO WATCH A HOWTOPLAY VIDEO? · WANT TO DOWNLOAD THE RULES OR SEE THE FAQ? · HAVE A QUESTION WHILE PLAYING OR A STORY TO SHARE? · WANT TO CALCULATE AND SAVE YOUR SCORE? · NEED A REPLACEMENT PART? · …	p.16	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)		p.2	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)	QUEEN'S FAVOR TRACK · END OF GAME AND SCORING 20 · DURING THE GAME, TALLY THE GAINED FROM: 14	p.15	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)		p.7	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)		p.2	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)	AT THE END OF THE GAME, ADD ANY GAINED FROM:	p.15	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)	SETUP GLOBAL COMPONENTS · 10 DEVELOPMENT TILES:	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)	PLAYER COMPONENTS	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Apiary — Rulebook (corpus doc 451)	SPECIAL ABILITY: · GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW · OTHER NOTES:	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 261 ms · first delta 12560 ms · total 21435 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 261 ms · ask 21165 ms · gateway work 21435 ms · total 21435 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3736
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 885
tok/sec: 100.4 tok/sec — 885 output tokens in 8.811 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 59s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 382), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.