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How to get Bees in Minecraft: Beehives, Bee Farms, and Honeycomb explainedEverything you need to know about Bees in Minecraft
Everything you need to know about Bees in Minecraft
Interested in learning how to farm Bees in Minecraft? While they can just be adorable pets, Bees inMinecraftcan also come in handy in quite a lot of situations. They can help speed up the growth of your plants, thanks to pollination, as well as help you get exclusive blocks like Honey and Honeycomb.
If you’ve just dove back in to thanks to the recent1.18 update, or just want to learn as much as you can about Bees, we’ve got you covered. We’ll go over the differences between Beehives and Bee Nests,how to make Beehives, what determines a Bee’s behaviour, as well as how to harvest Honey and Honeycomb from them.
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How to get Bees in Minecraft
Bees naturally spawn in groups of 3 inside Bee Nests. Bee Nests will only spawn in oak and birch trees within certain biomes.
Here are the possible biomes where Bee Nests can spawn, from highest to lowest chance:
Beehive and Bee Nest: what’s the difference?
They also look different, with Bee Nests sporting the more familiar stripe pattern as opposed to the Beehive’s slightly more brick-like texture. But otherwise they work in exactly the same way: they are both housing blocks for up to 3 Bees.
To make a Beehivein a Crafting Table, place any wooden planks along the top and bottom rows, and fill the middle row with 3 Honeycomb (see below for an example).
How to breed Bees
One important note: both the breeding cooldown and the growth rate are paused for any Bee that is inside a Beehive or Bee Nest, so it’s often a good idea while attempting to breed Bees to break the hives and replace them later.
Bee Behaviour and Pollinating
If you wish to kill a Bee, then it’s good to remember: they are classed as an Arthropod, which means theBane Of Arthropods enchantmentwill increase your damage against it. An alternative is to run away, because Bees will stop being hostile if they do not sting their target within 25 seconds of being provoked.
A large part of a Bee’s behaviour ispollination. During the night Bees stay in their hives, but during the day they’ll wander up to 22 blocks away from their home in search of pollen.
If they find a flower (not in a flower pot) or a berry bush it will take time to collect pollen from it. The Bee will then return the pollen to its nest, and any growable crop they fly over along the way will be pollinated, which has the same effect as bone meal: it will speed up the growth of that crop.
How to harvest Honey and Honeycomb at a Bee Farm
Bees can’t be trained to fight for you, so don’t expect them to help againstslimesor theWitherboss. However, Bee Farms are useful for harvesting both Honey and Honeycomb, which are two resources that have different purposes.
To harvest Honeycomb, you’ll need to use Shears on a Beehive or Bee Nest that has reached a “honey level” of 5.
Honeycomb is used to create Beehives andCandles, and it can also be used to “wax” various kinds ofCopper blocks.
To harvest Honey, right-click on the Beehive or Bee Nest with an empty Glass Bottle. This will fill the bottle with Honey.
Honey can be placed in a crafting window to produce 3 Sugar, or you can put 4 Honey in a 2x2 grid to create a Honey Block, a block which deters and slows mobs, and lowers fall damage for anything that lands on it.
Make sure you place a lit Campfire under any Beehive or Bee Nest that you’re about to harvest Honey or Honeycomb from, as this will stop the Bees from attacking you when you do so.
To make a Campfirein a Crafting Table window, fill the bottom row with 3 Logs, place 1 Coal in the middle of the grid, and then place 3 sticks above and to the left and right of the Coal, as you see below:
Bees may be dangerous under certain circumstances, but I’ve always found them to be a beautiful outdoor sight while exploring new Minecraft worlds. If you have the itch to explore and discover new lands, be sure to check out our list of thebest Minecraft seeds. And if you really want to make your new world pop, be sure to check out our page on thebest Minecraft shader packs. If you’re itching to make a new base, take a look at our lists ofcastleandtower ideasfor inspiration!
