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# Peter Nichols Built a Colony Sim for the Last Honey Bees
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/peter-nichols-built-a-colony-sim-for-the-last-honey-bees/
- Published: 2026-11-09T23:50:20.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T23:50:20.000Z
- Description: Made in two weeks for thatgamecompany's jam, Buzzkeeper runs thousands of simulated insects through NASA climate projections for the end of the century.
- Author: Jamin Warren
- Tags: Peter Nichols, Bees, Browser Games, simulation, ecology, climate change, thatgamecompany, game jam, itch.io, KYRIAKI GONI, #radar-item

[Peter Nichols](https://www.killscreen.com/tag/peter-nichols/), the Los Angeles artist and developer behind Elfsend, released *Buzzkeeper* on November 7, a free browser game about keeping the last honey bee hive on Earth alive. Grim! [The release announcement](https://www.instagram.com/p/DfdQFGlAUFI/?ref=killscreen.com) calls it "an emotional colony sim based on real behavioral research and climate prediction" and Nicholas has m tightened this last ditch effort to forty minutes to cover a single queen's reign. The goal and the hope is to raise a new queen before a new queen before the old one dies and frost arrives. It's a nice nod to Avery Alder's [*The Quiet Year*](https://www.killscreen.com/quiet-year-tabletop-game-building-communities/) that also tracks a community on the edge of collapse.

Here though, the systems are the main feature. According to [the game's page](https://elfsend.itch.io/buzzkeeper?ref=killscreen.com), the game mimics the lives of a few hundred to a few thousand bees, each moving through jobs over a roughly 21-day life: cleaner, brood nurse, builder, forager and, last, explorer, "the most dangerous job." That places you as a bit of type of *Football Manager*, never steering individual bees but setting an overall approach instead. You adjust age brackets that decide who does what, evaluating pollen sources by pesticide risk and distance, and cleaning a brood infested with Varroa mites. Real-world data also features in play with NASA climate projections for the end of this century. 

Nichols built it in two weeks as an entry to thatgamejam #02, the jam run by [thatgamecompany](https://www.killscreen.com/tag/thatgamecompany/), whose theme was a single piece of music. The jam drew 521 entries, and voting runs through December 11\. Sound design is by Christopher Taylor of [Body Meat](https://www.instagram.com/bodymeatco/?ref=killscreen.com). The page lists the game as a prototype made with AI-assisted code, and 

Nichols and Elf's End have chosen to decenter humans in all of their work; *Crude Oil* cast the player as a puddle of petroleum, *Dolf* hands a trashed planet to dolphins, and *Buzzkeeper* makes you a superorganism. There also may be something broader about game makers responding to the plight of bees. In May, [Kyriaki Goni](https://www.killscreen.com/tag/kyriaki-goni/) told Killscreen about *Telling the Bees*, a speculative game about finding the last surviving bees, built on the old ritual of telling the hive about births and deaths. Nichols says, "I might expand it to a full game," so I hope to see more.

For more reading see [Cybernetic dolphins take up mini-golf in *Dolf*](https://www.killscreen.com/cybernetic-dolphins-take-up-mini-golf-in-dolf/); [What Would You Do If You Had to Find the Last Surviving Bees?](https://www.killscreen.com/kiriaki-goni-telling-the-bees/); [A song is the whole theme of thatgamejam #02](https://www.killscreen.com/a-song-is-the-whole-theme-of-thatgamejam-02/); [The Backrooms Were Always About Games](https://www.killscreen.com/podcast/the-backrooms-were-always-about-games-podcast/), the podcast where *Crude Oil* came up; and [NASA's NEX-GDDP-CMIP6 dataset](https://www.nccs.nasa.gov/data-collections/nex-gddp-cmip6/?ref=killscreen.com), the climate model behind the game's weather.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/11/buzzkeeper-comb-closeup.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/11/buzzkeeper-peter-nichols-desk.jpg)

**Buzzkeeper* up close, and Peter Nichols with the game. Images: Peter Nichols (Elfsend)

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