Apiculture network

Beehouse workers agitated at the damage to one of their mainframes via high-velocity throwing stars.

Apiculture networking is a form of computing practiced on Alternia. Sollux Captor is the “unchallenged authority” in its practice. Like the slime found in many other Alternian computers, liquid honey seems to play an important part in this type of networking.

Components of an apiculture network

Beehouse mainframe

A “BEEHOUSE MAINFRAME” is a structure composed from a yellow-orange substance known as “silicomb”; a play on silicon, a substance commonly used in computing, and a comb, a collection of hollow cells such as those found in a beehive. Beehouse itself is an Alternian rendition of the term beehive, swapping the term hive for house (as in Homestuck and Hivebent).

Three individual mainframes of differing heights are visible in Sollux's hive, all attached to red and blue cables that appear to interface either directly with Sollux's personal computer, the game grubs beside it, or both.

Workers

Workers are the purple bee-like insects that assist in the operation of the apiculture network. They communicate in something known as beenary code, which appears to consist of naughts and ones flashing across the workers' faces where their eyes would be.

The workers become agitated when the mainframes take damage, but are calmed by the sleeping effects of Sollux's psychic abilities.

Mind honey

Mind honey is a viscous yellow substance cultivated within the mainframes, likely produced by the workers. Though its exact purpose in a computing system is unknown, the consumption of it is known to have various effects, particularly on the mind as its name suggests.

Effects

The effects of mind honey consumption on Sollux.

Sollux was known to feed the mind honey cultivated in his apiculture network to his lusus, with the apparent effect of making it act like an idiot most of the time as opposed to all the time. When consumed by Sollux himself, the apparent effect is far less positive, causing him to violently lose control of his psychic powers: Vriska Serket first took advantage of this by psychically influencing him into consuming some near Aradia Megido's hive, leading to her death^{[citation needed]}, and some time later these same effects were replicated on Sollux's own hive when he fell unconscious into a pool of the honey on his floor.^{[citation needed]}

Mituna Captor, in a reversed case, seems to rely on his own lusus to feed him mind honey. While the exact purpose of this is not known, it seems to assuage some of the detrimental effects of his acquired brain injury.^{[citation needed]}

Connections to other MS Paint Adventures

The Jocose Honey utilized in Comb Raves by Problem Sleuth characters is similarly attended to by worker bees and results in a dramatic visible power boost. Perhaps coincidentally, a Comb Rave entitled Fill 'Em With Daylight has the effect of 'bifurcating' the universePS #1248; interpreted literally, Sollux's name can be taken as meaning 'captor of sunlight'.