🐝 Community Open Hive Day

About this simulation

Beekeeping businesses build local goodwill — and future customers — by running school visits, open days and community education programmes around the apiary. This scene models a single open-day session: visitor groups arrive, are steered toward an observation hive, a honey-tasting table, a candle-rolling craft table and (if staffed) a Q&A corner with the beekeeper, then leave having formed an impression of the business.

How it works

• Group size — more visitors raises reach, but stations fill up and queuing drags engagement down unless pace and staffing keep up.
• Programme type — school visits lean into hands-on craft and the hive; open days spread evenly; market-stall tasters push most people straight to honey sampling.
• Session pace — a slower, more relaxed pace lets each visitor linger and learn more per station, at the cost of fewer people processed in the same time.
• Volunteer helper — a staffed Q&A corner absorbs overflow crowding and lifts the average engagement score.
• Honey jars sold accumulate when a well-engaged visitor finishes at the tasting table — a simple proxy for the commercial upside of outreach.

Controls

• Group size — target number of visitors moving through the site at once (10–80).
• Programme type — changes which stations visitors are steered toward.
• Session pace — from rushed to relaxed dwell time at each station.
• Volunteer helper — toggle an extra staffed station on or off.
• ↺ Reset day — clears all visitors and restarts the session. Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom.

Did you know?

Many UK beekeeping businesses report that a well-run open day or school visit converts a meaningful share of attendees into repeat honey customers — education and marketing are, in practice, the same activity.