If Bee Simulator was more of an action game for kids than you were hoping and you'd rather play something closer to SimCity with a colony of bees instead, Hive Time may be the insect sim for you. Released a year ago last month, it just celebrated its "hiveversary" with an update that adds a bunch of new stuff, including chat integration as seen in the extremely Australian trailer above. (Hive Time is the work of Australian indie developers Josh "Cheeseness" Bush and Miriam "Mimness" Roser.)
The Hiveversary Update also adds more events, including ones based on the date you're playing—so if your clock is set to December 12, for instance (the 12th of Beecember in Hive Time) you'll receive a little gift. There are more hats for bees, with each role in the hive getting an extra item of headgear, plus effects that can be set off either by events or gift voting if chat integration is enabled, and some optimization improvements that should make for better performance if your hive is on the big side.
You can read a fuller changelog of the Hiveversary Update at the developer blog if you're interested in the details of bugfixes like the one that has apparently "Fixed 'Bear attack' event using negative music when defenders sacrifice themselves to drive away Old Bitey".
Hive Time is available on itch.io, on a pay-what-you-want pricing model.
