Beehive

Bee nests are naturally generated blocks that house bees.

Beehives are crafted versions of bee nests.

Natural generation


Naturally generated bee nests generate with 3 bees in them.

Bee nests generate in the following biomes with different chances:

Bee nests are most commonly found in the Flower Forest biome because of its high tree density.

Saplings
Oak and birch trees grown from saplings that are within 2 blocks of any flower have 5% chance to grow with a bee nest with 1-3 bees in it. This behaviour was considered a bug [MC-159472] and was fixed in 19w35a (1.14.4). Since then, grown trees will never spawn with a bee nest in them.

Breaking


Hives can be mined by any tool or by the player's fist, though they break faster with an axe. Bee nests do not drop anything unless mined with Silk Touch, but hives drop empty if broken without Silk Touch. If broken with a tool enchanted with Silk Touch, the bees remain inside. Otherwise, they emerge from the hive and swarm the player.

Block loot
Bee nests and beehives also spawn any contained bees when broken without silk touch.

Bee housing
The hives can house up to 3 bees at a time. Bees fly into the nest at night, during rain, and after pollinating.

Igniting the hive will cause all bees inside to escape from it.

Harvesting
Pollinated bees fly into beehives and start working for a while. When done, they exit the hive, increasing the honey level by 1. When the honey level has reached 5, the block's appearance changes, indicating that it is full of honey, and produces dripping honey particles if suspended above the ground. If shears are on a full beehive, it drops three honeycombs. Unlike with shearing pumpkins, these honeycomb items are generated directly in the center of the block, causing them to spray everywhere; however this inconsistency is intended. If an empty glass bottle is used on a full beehive, the bottle fills with honey, becoming a honey bottle. Harvesting honey or honeycomb causes any bees inside the hive to become aggravated toward the player. If there is a lit campfire; or fire directly underneath the hive (campfire within five blocks underneath, without obstruction), harvesting the hive does not aggravate the bees inside. Using a dispenser with a or  via redstone to harvest the hive or nest also prevents the bees from attacking the player.

If you don't want the bees to take damage from the campfire, you can set the campfire below ground level and place a carpet on top of it. The carpet won't block the smoke, so you can harvest the honey without angering the bees.

Redstone component
Beehives and bee nests have comparator output with a strength equal to the honey level in the block. Once the beehive or bee nest is filled with honey it will emit a signal strength of five.

Sounds




ID




Block entity
A beehive has a block entity associated with it that holds additional data about the block.

Trivia

 * The terminology of a beehive being a man-made enclosure for bees is correct, as opposed to a naturally occurring bee nest.