by MORGAN Jack - Published 7 months ago

Minecraft: Honeycomb Farm Guide - Build & Harvest

Bees are valuable in Minecraft, providing honey, honeycomb, and mobility. Acquiring them initially can be challenging due to the difficulty of obtaining an intact hive.

This guide explains how to build a bee farm at your base, starting with the initial steps to obtaining bees. Setting up a honey and honeycomb farm is relatively simple, so let's get started!

Getting Bees

a-minecraft-bee-nest-with-bees-flying-around-flowers.webp

The most effective way to get bees is by finding a bee nest, which are yellow blocks located on birch or oak trees in these biomes:

Meadows
Plains
Sunflower Plains
Mangrove Swamp
Flower Forest
Forest
Birch Forest
Old Growth Birch Forest
Cherry Grove

For a faster bee acquisition, we recommend checking out Meadows, which are quite common. Bee nests naturally contain three bees, but they will typically roam up to 22 blocks away from the nest. Additionally, bees will return to their nest at night or during rain.

Harvesting a Wild Bee Nest

There are several methods for transporting bees back to your base. First, you can bring the entire bee nest. When bees are inside, you can harvest a nest using a tool enchanted with silk touch. This will preserve the nest and move the bees with it.

The bees will stay inside the nest until you place it down. Then, they will emerge and begin pollinating nearby flowers.

Bees on Leashes

You can also use leads to transport bees. Holding a lead, interact with a bee to attach it, allowing you to guide it home. This is helpful if you don't have silk touch yet.

Bee Hive vs. Bee Nest

A bee nest is a natural block found in the wild. It cannot be crafted and, as mentioned, any tool without silk touch (including your hand) will destroy it. A bee hive, on the other hand, is the crafted version.

Bee hives are ideal if you have bees but no nests. They can also serve as homes for any bees you breed. To make a bee hive, you will need the following materials.

6x Any Plank
3x Honeycomb

Creating a Bee Farm

Now, let's discuss how to build a bee farm to gather honey and honeycomb. It's important to understand the mechanics. You'll need an enclosed farm that encompasses bees, their homes, and flowers. This will prevent bees from flying away and getting lost.

Bees will attack if you gather anything from their hives/nests, but campfire smoke can pacify them. This is a key feature for manual bee farms. However, if you automate the process with redstone, you won't have to worry about pacifying them (as a dispenser will do the gathering).

Let's create the farm. First, place your bee hives/nests one block off the ground in a line. You can use as many as you like; there are no size restrictions. One block in front of the bee nests, place a row of flowers. The type of flower doesn't matter.

Next, you'll want to frame the beehives and flowers. This can be done with wood and glass, but you can use any material. Glass is a good choice for the front, as you will be able to see the bees working and pollinating flowers.

Once the front is closed, go to the back. Facing the beehives, place a chest directly to the left of them on the ground. Now, while crouching, attach a hopper to the side of the chest and then connect more hoppers under each beehive.

a-half-built-minecraft-bee-farm-showing-observers-over-the-hives.webp

After the hoppers are in place, it's time to place observers and dispensers. Standing on top of the hives, place an observer facing downwards on each one. The red dot should be angled towards the sky.

Once you've done that, place dispensers directly behind each hive. The 'face' of the dispenser should be against each hive; this may take some careful placement and temporary blocks. When the dispensers are in place, add redstone dust to the top of each and then a torch on the side opposite of the chest (this can sit on a normal block).

The basic structure is now complete! From here, you will need to fill the dispensers. If you put shears inside, then the result will be honeycomb. If, on the other hand, you place an empty bottle inside, the result will be a bottle of honey.

Shears can be used over and over again until they break, but bottles can only hold one portion of honey. As such, you will need to check on the bottles regularly to empty them or change them out.

You can break open the front of this farm to place bees. All you need is two to start, and then you can breed them by giving each one a flower.