Each forager cycles hive → flower → hive: it seeks a nearby flower, drinks nectar until its 1‑unit crop is full or the flower runs dry, then flies home and deposits the load into the colony's nectar reserve. The reserve pays a fixed cost to raise a fresh forager, so colony size is not fixed by the slider — it is the outcome of nectar income minus wasp predation.
- Wasps patrol the meadow and lunge at any bee that strays within their strike radius; a successful strike removes that bee permanently, exactly like the "wasp threat" the 3D original models as a nervous-flight multiplier, made literal here as hunting predators.
- Wind adds turbulence to every flight path and slightly slows return trips, cutting nectar income without directly killing bees.
- Flowers regrow nectar slowly, so overcrowding a patch with too many foragers starves the very colony that depends on it.