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This article is about the mob. For other uses, see Bee (disambiguation).

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

Spawning

Natural generation

Naturally generated bee nests generate with 3 bees in them.

Bee nests generate in the following biomes with different chances:

Biome Chance[note 1]
JE BE
[until BE 1.16.0]
BE
[upcoming: BE 1.16.0]
Plains
Sunflower plains
5% 10% 5%
Flower forest 2% 20% 3%
Forest
Wooded hills
Birch forest
Tall birch forest
Birch forest hills
Tall birch hills
0.2% 0% 0.035%
  1. The chance for each naturally-generated oak or birch tree to have a bee nest.

Saplings

Oak and birch trees grown from saplings that are within 2 blocks of any flower have a 5% chance to grow with bee nest and 1–3 bees in it.‌[Java Edition only][upcoming: BE 1.16.0]

Drops

Upon death, adult bees drop 1–3 orbs when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Upon breeding successfully, 1–7 is dropped.

Like other baby animals, killing a baby bee yields no experience.

Behavior

Bees do not fly (like ghasts or the ender dragon), but instead hover a few blocks above the ground similar to bats.

Bees are considered arthropods and take increased damage from the Bane of Arthropods enchantment.[1] They also take damage when touching water.

Bees can be attached to a lead, even when angered. They can still attack while attached.

Bees normally won't go further than 22 blocks from their beehive (Bee Nest) to find something they can pollinate or to attack someone.

Pollinating

Bees leave their nest one by one during the day. They fly around their nests, and are attracted by flowers and sweet berry bushes. After circling a flower or berry bush for about 30 seconds, a bee collects pollen. A bee carrying pollen changes its texture to include pollen spots on its back and drops pollen particles similar to water droplets falling.

Bees that have pollen pollinate wheat, potatoes, carrots, beetroots, melon stems, pumpkin stems and sweet berry bushes they fly over. When one of these plants gets pollinated, it advances to another growth stage, similar to using bone meal. In order to pollinate a plant, the particles that drop must touch it directly. A bee can fertilize plants 10 times each time they have pollen, and there is a small wait time between pollinating each plant.

Afterward, the bee flies back into its hive/nest and makes honey. It takes about 2 minutes for the bee to do this. That increases the amount of honey in a hive/nest by 1. When the amount reaches 5, honey starts dripping out, which you can see from the bottom and front of the hive/nest. A hive/nest must have 5 honey inside of it in order for you to be able to collect either honeycombs or honey bottles.

Housing

Bee and bee nest

A bee coming out of a bee nest.

Bees live together in colonies and take any beehive that has enough space as its home. One beehive can house up to 3 bees. Homeless bees wander around searching for empty beehives. Bees can enter a beehive from any side, but exit only from the front. One-way bee-gates can be made in this way.

Bees return to their nest when it rains and when it is night. Bees stay in their nest or hive for at least 2400 game ticks (2 minutes) before coming back out. Bees that come out keep their data (health, name, etc.).

Breaking a nest or hive that contains bees releases all the bees. If a bee nest containing bees is harvested using a tool enchanted with Silk Touch, the bees inside are kept, with their respective data, in the hive, and they can exit the hive again when it is placed.

When a bee that has pollen enters and then leaves its nest or hive, the honey level of the nest/hive is increased by one. When the honey level of that hive reaches 5, the player can harvest it.

Attacking

Main article: Damage
Bee stings

All bees nearby are angered when an individual is attacked or when a beehive is destroyed. Hitting or walking on a nest does not anger bees; it must be destroyed to anger them. When destroyed, a beehive releases any bees that it contained, and these bees are angry. If the beehive is destroyed with a Silk Touch tool, bees outside the hive become angry ‌[Bedrock Edition only], while those kept within it remain neutral even after the hive is placed again.

Bees attack and swarm the player as a group when angered, and the eyes of angered bees turn red. Collecting a honeycomb or a honey bottle from a nest or hive causes the bees that are currently in that nest or hive to leave and swarm the player unless a campfire is placed below the hive; lighting any block on fire under a hive or nest also works. Bees do not attack in Peaceful difficulty.

If the player deflects a bee's attack with a shield, the bee continues attacking until it succeeds in hitting the player.

Bee (sting)Bee (stingless)

When a bee's attack on a player succeeds, the player is poisoned. A bee loses its stinger after a successful attack, and cannot attack further after it has lost its stinger. After losing its stinger, the bee dies in approximately one minute. This duration is not hardcoded into the game, so the death of bees can be delayed with potions (Regeneration/Resistance/Absorption) that have a 255 potency.

It is possible to (quickly) breed at least one angered bee with another, even if it or they had stung and lost the stinger. However, they remain angered and still die later due to being stingerless.

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

Honey Blocks

Main article: Honey Block

Bees will attach themselves to honey blocks, as if they are "eating" the block.

Breeding

Main article: Breeding

Bees follow players holding flowers. If the player is standing still and being followed by bees, the bees go toward the player, face the player, and rest on the ground. They do this until the player moves.

If bees are given a flower, they enter love mode and pair up to create baby bees, granting the player 1-7 experience. The parent bees have a cooldown of 5 minutes before they can breed again. Babies take 20 minutes (1 in-game day) to grow up. The growth of baby bees can be accelerated using flowers; each use reduces the remaining time by 10%. It should be noted, however, that both the breeding cooldown timer and the growing-up timer do not count down while bees are in a hive; thus, bees that are not actively working may take much longer to grow up or be ready to breed compared to other mobs.

The flower can be any of the 1- or 2-block flowers. The wither rose, which is ordinarily harmful, has no harmful effect when used like this.

Sounds

SoundSubtitlesSourceDescriptionResource locationTranslation keyVolumePitchAttenuation
distance
Bee diesFriendly Creatures?entity.bee.deathsubtitles.entity.bee.death1.01.016
Bee hurtsFriendly Creatures?entity.bee.hurtsubtitles.entity.bee.hurt1.01.0 / 1.216
Bee buzzesFriendly Creatures?entity.bee.loopsubtitles.entity.bee.loop0.6 / 0.65 / 0.7 / 0.751.016
Bee buzzes angrilyFriendly Creatures?entity.bee.loop_aggressivesubtitles.entity.bee.loop_aggressive0.81.016
Bee buzzes happilyFriendly Creatures?entity.bee.pollinatesubtitles.entity.bee.pollinate0.81.016
Bee stingsFriendly Creatures?entity.bee.stingsubtitles.entity.bee.sting1.00.816

Advancements

Icon Advancement In-game description Parent Actual requirements (if different) Resource location
Advancement-plain-rawBee Our Guest
Use a Campfire to collect Honey from a Beehive using a Glass Bottle without aggravating the Bees HusbandryUse a glass bottle on a beehive or bee nest while not angering the bees inside.husbandry/safely_harvest_honey
Advancement-plain-rawThe Parrots and the Bats
Breed two animals together HusbandryBreed a pair of any of these 25 mobs: A mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breedable together. Other breedable mobs are ignored for this advancement.husbandry/breed_an_animal
Advancement-plain-rawTotal Beelocation
Move a Bee Nest, with 3 Bees inside, using Silk Touch Husbandryhusbandry/silk_touch_nest
Advancement-fancy-rawTwo by Two
Breed all the animals! The Parrots and the BatsBreed a pair of each of these 24 mobs: A trader llama does not count as a llama, and a mule must be the result of breeding a horse and a donkey for this advancement as they are not breedable together. Other breedable mobs can be bred, but are ignored for this advancement.husbandry/bred_all_animals

Achievements

Icon Achievement In-game description Actual requirements (if different) Gamerscore earned Trophy type (PS4)
PS4 Other
Bee our guestUse a Campfire to collect Honey from a Beehive using a Bottle without aggravating the bees.15GBronze
Total BeelocationMove and place a Bee Nest, with 3 bees inside, using Silk Touch.30GSilver
Sticky SituationSlide down a honey block to slow your fall.30GSilver

Data values

ID

NameIdentifierTranslation key
Beebeeentity.minecraft.bee

Entity data

See also: Chunk format

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

  • Entity data
    • Additional fields for mobs that can become angry
    • Additional fields for mobs that can breed
    • Tags common to all entities
    • Tags common to all mobs
    •  CannotEnterHiveTicks: Time left in ticks until the bee can enter a beehive. Used when the bee is angered and released from the hive by a player, but the hive is smoked by a campfire.
    •  CropsGrownSincePollination: How many crops the bee has grown since its last pollination. Used to limit number of crops it can grow.
    •  FlowerPos: Coordinates of the flower the bee is circling.
      •  X: X coordinate.
      •  Y: Y coordinate.
      •  Z: Z coordinate.
    •  HasNectar: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the bee is carrying pollen.
    •  HasStung: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the bee has stung a mob or player.
    •  HivePos: Coordinates of the bee's hive.
      •  X: X coordinate.
      •  Y: Y coordinate.
      •  Z: Z coordinate.
    •  TicksSincePollination: Number of ticks passed since the bee's last pollination.

History

Java Edition
1.1519w34aBee Bee Added bees.
Bee (angry) Bee (angry) Bees and baby bees can become angry and attack the player.
Bee with nectar Bee with nectar Bees and baby bees can pollinate flowers and show the nectar on them after doing so.
Bee with nectar (angry) Revision 1 Bee with nectar (angry) Bees and baby bees that have pollinated flowers can become angry and attack the player.
19w35aBees now try to avoid water.
Bee nests now spawn less frequently making bees more rare.
Breeding bees now counts towards the "Two by Two" advancement.
19w36aBees are now affected by the Bane of Arthropods enchantment.
Bees are now able to pollinate on lilac, rose bush and peony flowers.
Bee texture change 19w34a to 19w36a The textures of bees have now been tweaked. The gradation part for picking up the color has been removed and the translucent pixels are now fully transparent.[2]
"bee_angry_nectar" now has same pollen pattern as "bee_nectar", which has changed the textures from Bee with nectar (angry) Revision 1 to Bee with nectar (angry).[3]
Bees no longer stop flying after reaching the player they are following.
19w41aBees now "eat" honey blocks.
19w46aBees now exit beehives only from the front.
1.15.2pre1Bees no longer anger when a nearby nest/hive is destroyed using a Silk Touch tool.
Bees now remember how many crops they have pollinated.
Bees no longer stay in the hive/nest forever after riding a minecart or boat.
Upcoming Java Edition
1.1620w12aReduced the maximum distance a bee can wander away from its home hive when randomly wandering to around 22 blocks.
Bedrock Edition
1.14.0beta 1.14.0.1Bee BE Bee BE Added bees.
Bee (angry) BE Bee (angry) BE Bees and baby bees can become angry and attack the player.
Bee with nectar BE Bee with nectar BE Bees and baby bees can pollinate flowers and show the nectar on them after doing so.
Bee with nectar (angry) BE Bee with nectar (angry) BE Bees and baby bees that have pollinated flowers can become angry and attack the player.

Issues

Issues relating to "Bee" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Gallery

Trivia

References

  1. "Minecraft 19w36a" – Minecraft.net, July 3, 2019
  2. MC-159560
  3. MC-159743
  4. "MINECON Live 2019" – Minecraft on YouTube, September 28, 2019

See also

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