Did you know that Minecraft has sold over 238 million copies? Most people know a lot about the game, but some items remain obscure. Honeycomb is a prime example.
Many players never touch honeycomb. They might not even know what the item does, let alone how to get it. But learning how to get honeycomb in Minecraft can help you to improve your builds or farm resources to trade with other players.
If you’re looking to learn more about honeycomb, you’re in the right place. Keep reading this sweet article to learn everything you need to know about putting those bees to work.
How to Get Honeycomb in Minecraft
Honeycomb is harvested from beehives or bee nests. You can harvest the honeycomb by approaching a hive with honey level five and using shears on the hive. If you don’t have a pair of shears, they can be made at crafting tables by using two iron ingots.
You can normally harvest honeycomb several times a day. You will see your bees heading out of the hive to go and collect pollen and each time they return to the nest, the honey level of the hive increases. At level five, you can harvest that sweet honeycomb!
Related: How to Make A Throne in Minecraft
Acquiring Beehives
Before you can get honeycomb, you need beehives. But where do beehives come from? You can choose from several methods.
The easiest method to get a beehive is to make one. Go to a crafting table and use six planks of wood and three pieces of honeycomb. Then simply place the hive in a spot of your choice and wait for bees to spawn inside.
You may also spot beehives as you wander the map. Naturally generated hives are called bee nests and they come with three bees already inside. Although they look slightly different from hives, they serve exactly the same purpose.
You can find these natural hives in any of the following biomes:
- Meadow
- Plains or sunflower planes
- Forest and birch forest
- Cherry grove
- Mangrove swamp
- Flower forest
Once you spot a wild hive, you may wish to take it back to your base. Be warned though, if you simply break the hive with a weapon or your fist, nothing will be dropped and the bees will attack you. You can take the hive elsewhere by using a silk touch enchantment, and the bees will thank you for your courtesy, too!
Hives can often be found in trees. If a sapling from an oak, mangrove, or birch tree grows within two blocks of a flower, it has a 5% chance to generate a new hive!
Angry Bees!
Honeycomb is made by bees, and these feisty insects don’t take too kindly to you stealing the fruits of their labor! Watch out for bees attacking you as you harvest honeycomb. Although they aren’t particularly potent foes, they can still be irritating.
Luckily, there are some easy ways to ensure bees don’t attack you. One of the easiest is to light a campfire under the hive, using logs, sticks, and a piece of coal or charcoal. The smoke will lull the bees to sleep, allowing you to harvest honey and honeycomb safely.
Be sure to get rid of the fire after you’re done. Otherwise, it will keep your bees sleepy and could even kill bees from other hives.
Rain, Rain, Go Away
When the rain comes down, bees refuse to leave their hive. That means your honeycomb production will stop when the weather is bad. Don’t worry though, rain in Minecraft normally only lasts a few minutes, so things will be running as normal again soon enough.
If you’re playing Minecraft in creative mode or a custom Minecraft server, you can use the settings to lock into permanent sunny weather.
Night time will also stop your bees from emerging. But hey, these hard-working critters deserve a rest, too.
Making a Honeycomb Farm
If you need large amounts of honeycomb, or you’re planning on selling it to other players, it’s a good idea to set up a honeycomb farm. This will allow you to mass produce honeycomb easily. Setting up a farm is simple and requires relatively few resources.
First, find some bee nests using the method above. Use silk touch to safely break the nest, or light a fire underneath and harvest some honeycomb to get you started.
You will also need to take some bees with you. You can lure them to your chosen location using flowers. You can also use a lead to bring a bee with you.
Once you have a few beehives, place them in an arrangement of your choice, allowing plenty of space between each one for bees to move freely. It’s best to allow at least three blocks of space between each hive.
Make sure to put plenty of flowers close to your hives. You can find flowers in most biomes, so go for a wander and you’ll soon find a nice selection. Place them in a ring around your hives, allowing the bees to harvest pollen without having to travel too far.
An optimum place for your beehives is close to your crops. Pollen displaced by bees can help your crops to grow faster, just like bone meal.
Automated Honeycomb Harvesting
Just like most other processes in Minecraft, you can automate honeycomb harvesting if you wish.
You can use dispensers containing shears and glass bottles to collect the honeycomb automatically. You will need to set up a redstone comparator to detect when the hive is full and ready for shearing.
Using Honeycomb
Contrary to popular belief, you can’t eat honeycomb in Minecraft! Instead, it has several other uses in crafting and building.
Crafting Ingredient
Honeycomb is a key ingredient in many crafting recipes. Most commonly, it is used to make beehives. That does mean that harvesting honeycomb is something of a cyclical process, so you will need to find a wild bee nest to get you started.
You can also make candles from honeycomb and string. Candles are a light source that can be dyed to create colored light.
Waxing
Honeycomb is used to make waxed copper blocks. That stops the copper blocks from oxidizing and changing color.
Normal copper blocks change over time, going from a bronze color to a bluey-green. A real-life example is the Statue of Liberty, a structure that totally changed color over time!
Waxed blocks also look shinier. This is a simple aesthetic touch, but it can still make all the difference for serious builders. You can also make waxed blocks into stairs and plates.
Side Products
When you farm honeycomb, you’ll also end up with a lot of honey bottles. Honey can be used for crafting sugar and honey blocks. Honey blocks are used in various redstone setups and sugar is used to make different types of sweet food.
Honey is harvested by using an empty glass bottle on a hive. You can easily make plenty of glass simply by harvesting sand and cooking it.
Honey Harvesting Havoc!
Although harvesting honeycomb and honey in Minecraft is normally fairly easy, there are a few problems you can run into.
As bees go to and fro collecting pollen, you will need to be sure they are protected. More bees will spawn if your regular residents are killed, but lots of deaths will seriously slow down your production.
Common threats to bees include:
- Lava
- Water
- Campfires
- Cacti
Build your honeycomb farm in a flat, dry area, away from all of these hazards. Be sure your bees have easy access to flowers so they can harvest pollen and nectar without traveling too far.
Consider building your farm inside the walls of your base. If you bring it fully inside, it will be protected from roaming mobs and other hazards. Just be sure to avoid placing the hives in darkness, as this will put them in danger.
You will also need to watch out for the ever-present threat of creepers! Every Minecraft player knows the damage they can do when they go off, so keep a close eye out and vacate the area if you see one prowling around. Be sure to keep your honey farm well-lit and avoid visiting at night if you want to avoid this damage.
Make Way
Be sure to leave access free for your beehives. Your bees need to enter and leave the hive in order to produce honey. Although they can enter from any side, they can only leave hives from the front.
Check that nothing is blocking access to any of your hives in order to maximize production speed. Avoid building the hives in adjacent squares as this is a common way entrances are blocked.
News and Features
Honeycomb is something of a mystery to many Minecraft players. But harvesting and using it is easy when you know what you’re doing. Experiment with different methods of farming and you’ll soon find an efficient way to get all the honeycomb you could ever want.
Did you like our feature on how to get honeycomb in Minecraft? Like a shipwreck packed with treasure, we’ve got plenty more to uncover. Check out our Minecraft guides section for more similar articles and gaming tips.
