Bee

Bees are neutral mobs that live in bee nests and bee hives. If provoked, bees attack in a swarm to sting the player and inflict poison.

Natural generation
Bees spawn in small groups around bee nests hanging from oak and birch trees found in, and  biomes. Every tree in these biomes has a 5% chance to have a bee nest only during world generation. Bee hives are most commonly found in the Flower Forest biome because of its tree density, as opposed to the few scattered trees found in the others biomes.

Behavior
Bees fly around their nests, and are attracted by small or tall flowers. After circling a flower for a while a bee can collect pollen. A bee carrying pollen changes its texture to include pollen spots on its back, and emits pollen particles.

Bees that have pollen have a chance to pollinate crops they fly over. When a crop is pollinated, it advances to another growth stage, similar to using bone meal. In order to fertilize crops, the pollen particles that fall off the bee have to touch the crop. A bee can fertilize crops only a few times when they have pollen.

When a bee that has pollen enters and then leaves its bee nest or bee hive, the honey level of the nest/hive is increased by one. Bees stay in their nest or hive for at least 2400 game tick before coming back out.

Bees follow players holding small flowers. If the player is standing still and being followed by bees the bees will go to the player, face them and "sit" on the ground. They will do this until the player moves.

Bees that enter and then leave their nest/hive keep their data (name, health, etc.)

Bees return to their nest when it rains. They do the same when night falls.

As they are arthropods in real life, bees are considered arthropods in Minecraft and take increased damage against the Bane of Arthropods enchantment.

Bees can be attached to a lead, even when angered.

Attacking
Main article: Damage

All bees nearby are angered when one individual is attacked, or when a nest is destroyed. Hitting or walking on a nest does not anger bees; the nest must be destroyed.

Bees attack and swarm the player as a group when angered, much like wolves. The eyes of angered bees turn red. Collecting a honeycomb or a honey bottle from a nest or hive causes the bees from that nest or hive to leave and swarm the player. Placing a campfire below the hive prevents the bees from swarming when comb or honey is harvested. Bees do not attack in Peaceful difficulty.

After attacking and poisoning the player, bees lose their stinger and die within 50–60 seconds. Bees do not attack the player if they have already lost their stinger. Bees can, therefore, attack only once.

Bees also swarm and attack other mobs when damaged, for example when a skeleton shoots a bee.

Breeding
If bees are given a flower, they enter love mode and pair off to create baby bees, granting the player a small amount of experience. The parent bees have a cool-down of 5 minutes before they can breed again. Babies take 20 minute to grow up. The growth of baby bees can be accelerated using flowers; each use reduces the remaining time by 10%.

Entity data
Bees have entity data associated with them that contains various properties of the mob.

Trivia

 * Bees are the first flying insects and first flying neutral mobs introduced to Minecraft. The other insects are silverfish and endermites.
 * Bees are the only arthropod mob that do not count as mobs necessary to earning the Monster Hunter / Monsters Hunted advancements.
 * Creepers and bees are the only mobs that can only attack once.
 * Bees were made to be half a block long and wide since Mojang considered this size to be the cutest.