Porch swing notes

Honey Bee Acres vs Calico Critters: flocked animal family playsets

This is the question we are asked most, and the honest answer is that the two lines are cousins rather than twins. Here is where they actually part company.

They are not the same company

Calico Critters is the North American name for a flocked animal family line that has been distributed out of Japan for decades, and it is sold here under licence by an American arm of that business. Honey Bee Acres is a separate, newer American line. Different makers, different characters, different packaging — the resemblance is to the genre, not to each other.

Collectors have followed the older line for many years, and its back catalogue is deep: discontinued houses, retired families, regional exclusives. Honey Bee Acres has a short, current catalogue instead, and everything in it is on a shelf right now.

What is the same, and it matters

Scale. Both lines build around a roughly three-inch flocked, poseable figure with removable clothes, and both furnish their world with miniature furniture and accessories at that size. Honey Bee Acres states plainly that its figures and playsets work with competitor figures and playsets, so a village can be mixed without anything looking out of place.

This is good news if there are already critters in the house. Adding a Honey Bee Acres cottage does not start a second, separate collection — it adds a building to the one that exists.

Where they differ on the shelf

Price and assembly are the two practical gaps. Honey Bee Acres families land in the ten-to-sixteen dollar range, and the playsets run from about nine dollars for a small errand set to the mid-forties for a cottage. Everything arrives assembled; the flower shop with its fifty-nine pieces is open the moment the lid is off.

The other difference is breadth. The older line has a village's worth of buildings, the characters number in the hundreds, and many are long out of production. Honey Bee Acres keeps six families, five buildings, four small sets, two vehicles and a surprise bag — a catalogue you can hold in your head, which is the reason this lane only needs five shelves.