Minecraft bees are a neutral Minecraft mob, meaning they keep to themselves unless you mess with them or their nests – seems fair. If, like in reality, you get stung, the bee loses its stinger and eventually dies, which itself is reason enough to steer clear and treat these precious bees with the respect they deserve. They will, after all, make honey which you can collect and put to good use.
These cute Minecraft mobs are among the smallest in the game, and if you spot one flying around one of the many Minecraft biomes, it’s an indication there is a nest nearby. Once you’ve located a nest, you can harvest Minecraft honey, which can in turn be used to craft a number of useful items. Minecraft bees’ behaviour is a little difficult to predict if you don’t know how they work though, so here’s what you need to know to keep your bees alive, and your apiary producing honey in the survival game.
How to get bees in Minecraft
You can find Minecraft bees hanging out near bee nests in flower forests, plains, and sunflower plains biomes. These nests spawn naturally, can hold up to three bees and five levels of honey, and are used as a communication system between the bees in Minecraft.
If you’re having no luck finding any near you, you can try and force a bee nest to spawn, by placing an oak or spruce sapling within two blocks of any flower. This gives a 5% chance of the tree growing with a bee nest attached. While you can craft a beehive using honeycomb and wooden planks, you’ll still need the bees and the honeycomb, so you want to find and safely break at least one natural bee nest first.
How to move a Minecraft bee nest
Unless you’ve used the above trick to spawn a bee nest at home, you need to know how to safely move one in the wild, so you can take it back to your base and harvest honey to your heart’s content. Sure, if the nest is full, you can harvest honey out in the wild, but for a renewable resource of the sticky sweet stuff, you’ll want to set up a working Minecraft farm with bees and nests – and moving a bee nest is the hard part as breaking it will force the bees to leave and anger them.
Keep bees in calm mode with smoke by placing a campfire underneath a nest or hive – also imperative if you’re collecting honeycomb or filling up your honey bottle. Make sure there are actually bees inside the nest, and break it with a silk touch tool, which will keep the item intact and the bees inside. Without this Minecraft enchantment, the bees will leave the nest, and an empty nest is no good to you if you’re taking it to your base. You can always lure them with a flower, or attach the to a lead, but your best bet is to carry them in their nests across significant distances.
How to breed Minecraft bees and their behaviour
To obtain more bees for your farm, you can breed bees, as you can with the majority of friendly or neutral Minecraft mobs. Give two adult bees a flower to cause them to enter love mode, and they will produce one baby bee.
If you’re adding to your apiary, you’ll want additional beehives, as each can only house up to three bees at a time. Homeless bees will locate the nearest hive with space, so all your newborns will find a home.
Pollinating
Of course, a bee’s job is pollination and making honey. Make sure there are plenty of flowers around, as a bee will exit the nest and hover over nearby flowers to collect pollen. Their appearance will then change, showing the pollen on their bodies, and they will make their way back to the hive to deposit the pollen. Bees will also head back to the nest during the night and when it’s raining.
Attacking
When angered, a bee’s eyes will turn red, and it will attack you, causing damage. Just like in real life, the bee will leave its stinger behind (which you can see in your avatar!) and will die soon after – so it’s best not to upset your cute little friends! The same will happen if you accidentally hit a bee, and all nearby bees will come to the rescue as well, all attacking you simultaneously.
With this information at your disposal, you should now be able to start your very own honey farm in Minecraft, creating honey blocks, candles, and more – not to mention just how cute it is to have an adorable bee farm. If you’re interested in gathering more mobs in one of the best PC games of all time, then check out the Minecraft fox – which can be put to work in an automated berry farm. Or there’s the upcoming Minecraft camel, coming to the sandbox game with the Minecraft 1.20 release date, and giving you a speedier way to traverse the expansive overworld.