Hey there, Starverinos! I've got a fresh solo Bee Queen speedrun for ya:
As usual, here is a timestamp to the fight if you want to skip ahead: https://youtu.be/rbYyUFe3FvA?t=2612
First off, I want to say that the Bee Queen is an insanely fun battle. Major props and potato cup trophies to the devs who designed her!
I haven't had much time in the past few weeks, so it's taken longer than I would have liked to get a decent run, especially with Klei changing up the mechanics. Originally I was using a flingomatic and a torch -- quick-swapping to the torch to smack the Queen with fire, and using her ignited body to set off the flingomatic. It was a very tough fight, but still feasible. That is, until Klei introduced the trail of honey.
The honey drastically hinders movement speed, so it becomes extremely difficult to maneuver around the Queen during the last two stages when the grumble bees are triggered hardcore, or at least it's extremely difficult solo, in the early game, without speedboosting ruins or winter gear (or even the timeless strat of using star caller's staffs to summon dwarf stars for an endless barrage of snowballs from flingomatics).
The new method I came up with probably seems a bit esoteric, but I've been familiar with the mechanics behind the strategy for a while because I'm addicted to megabases, so I've built several bee enclosures over the years. If you aren't aware, bee enclosures are tricky because when bees are totally enclosed in walls, they pass right through them as if they weren't even there. But if you open up a single exit for the bees, they will then honor the physicality of the walls and prefer to use the exit. With this fact, you can manipulate the movement of bees in useful and hilarious ways.
I whipped up a photorealistic drawing in ms paint to explain more clearly:
![rrg3Whh.png]()
I'm not sure if the fight looks easy, but it's still decently challenging controlling the flow of bees, the position of the Queen, etc. Plus I'm not sure how applicable this method would be for a team of players, since controlling who the Queen and grumble bees are aggroed on might be confusing; it'd probably be better to just forego the walls since it's an easy team fight anyway. So yeah, pls no remove devs, this is an interesting strat.. but if you are tempted to snip away cheese, there are far cheesier methods, a few of which I've compiled into a separate video:
Thanks for reading! Enjoy the speedrun!