Minecraft - A Guide To Bees

In version 1.15, we saw the introduction of one of Minecraft’s cutest mobs. The bee! Nearly a block in size, these neutral mobs fly around searching for pollen to make delicious honey back at their nest. But bee warned! These cute arthropods are not afraid to sting if you touch their home! So put on your bee suit because today we will be exploring Minecraft’s Bees and all their bumbly features.

Part 1: Where to Find Bees

Bees spawn naturally alongside a nest in seven different biomes: Meadows, Plains, Sunflower Plains, Flower Forests, Forests, Birch Forests, and Old Growth Birch Forests. Having trouble finding one? Saplings within two blocks of a flower have a five percent chance of growing into a tree with a bee’s nest on it. Not ideal, but at least there is an alternative way!

Keep in mind, if a bee is spotted in the wilderness, its hive is not far. Bees will never venture beyond 22 blocks from their home.

Part 2: Bringing Home a Bumble Bee

Bees will follow flowers held by the player and can also be led using a lead. If silk touch tools are available, using one to break a nest when all three bees are inside will yield a nest block containing three living bees. The nest can then be placed at your desired location.

If bringing bees home by lead or flower, they will need a new home at the destination. Luckily beehives can be crafted using two rows of planks with three honeycombs in-between.

Once you have your initial bees, two can be bred using flowers to make a baby bee. From there, bees can be bred every five minutes creating as many bees as you need. Don’t forget that each hive can only hold three bees! Any extra bees will fly away searching for an empty hive to call home.

Part 3: Bee Beehaviour

Bees leave their hive one at a time in search of flowers, and once they have gathered pollen, they return home to make honey. This honey-making process takes a newly returned bee exactly two minutes inside its hive. Five complete trips will then mark a hive as overflowing and ready for harvest. But don’t bee too hasty! The bees will attack if you try to take their honey!

To work around this, campfires are used. Or, more specifically, their smoke. Placing a campfire up to five blocks beneath a hive “smokes” the bees allowing a safe harvest. For those more redstone inclined, honey can also be safely harvested using dispensers instead.

Finally, bees work hard all day unless it is raining and sleep in their hive at night.

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Part 4: Honey Farming

The optimal honey farm is oddly in the nether. As stated before, bees only stop working at night and during the rain. Both of which the nether does not have. Place your hives around a patch of dirt with flowers, and your bees will work without rest in their new eternal nether home.

Alternatively, bees covered in pollen passively pollinate any crops they fly over substantially increasing the crop’s rate of growth. Placing the bees around your farmland, while not an optimal honey farm, increases the farm’s productivity in exchange.

Part 5: The Honey Harvest

With the hive full of honey and safely smoked, there are now two options for harvesting. A bottle or shears. Using empty bottles will yield Honey Bottles which can be consumed or used to craft honey blocks. Using sheers will instead produce three honeycombs. These can be used to preserve copper blocks or make honeycomb blocks and candles.

Part 6: Killing the Wither

Now it is time for the true purpose of bees. Killing the Wither.

Create an enclosed space filled with bees and beehives before building a Wither inside. This will make the foolish Wither shoot a hive, and in turn, anger every bee. From there, sit back and watch as the swarm closes in around him. Some even say you can hear the wither yelling, “NOT THE BEES!!!”

Until Next Time,

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