How to Play Hive: Placement, Movement & Insect Rules
Hive is a two-player abstract game with no board. The pieces themselves form the Hive, and the objective is to surround the opposing Queen Bee on all six sides.
Scope: standard base set. Expansion insects such as Mosquito, Ladybug and Pillbug are excluded unless your edition explicitly includes them as optional pieces.
Place a new insect or move one already in play
On early turns you place pieces according to the adjacency restriction: after your first piece, a newly placed piece generally touches your own color but not an opponent piece at the moment of placement.
Your Queen must be placed by your fourth turn
You may place the Queen earlier, but if she is not already in play you must place her on your fourth turn. You cannot move pieces before your Queen has been placed.
The Hive must always remain connected
The One Hive rule forbids a move that would split the connected group into separate pieces. A piece acting as the only bridge between two regions is pinned until another connection is created.
Sliding freedom limits ground movement
Most ground pieces must physically slide through a gap. If neighboring pieces block both sides of the gap, that movement is illegal unless the insect’s special ability bypasses the restriction.
Base insect movement
- Queen Bee: one space around the Hive.
- Beetle: one space and can climb onto the Hive.
- Grasshopper: jumps in a straight line over one or more contiguous pieces to the next empty space.
- Spider: moves exactly three spaces around the outside.
- Soldier Ant: moves any number of legal spaces around the perimeter.
Surround the opposing Queen to win
The Queen is surrounded when all six adjacent spaces are occupied by pieces of either color. If both Queens become surrounded from the same move, the result follows the official draw rule.
Publisher reference: Gen42 Games: Hive. Checked September 21, 2026.