Master Minecraft: Learn How to Obtain Honey in the Game

Curious about honey in Minecraft? From finding bee nests to crafting honey blocks, there’s a lot to discover about this sweet resource. Learn how to obtain honey, its various uses, potential side effects, and even how to farm it in the game.

Whether you’re looking to heal your character, attract bees, or simply enjoy a sticky adventure, this article has all the tips and tricks you need to make the most of honey in Minecraft.

What is Honey in Minecraft?

In Minecraft, honey is a sugar-based block that bees produce after visiting a beehive or bee nest. When the honey level in a honey block reaches 5 or more, players can use an empty glass bottle or shears depending on if it is a honey block or honeycomb to collect it.

Honey blocks in Minecraft are solid, sticky blocks that slow movement down when walked on. They can be pushed or pulled by pistons and are used to make many redstone mechanics, nastolgia/items (Jumping Honey block), PVP traps and puzzles. It can also be combined with Redstone to enhance other Minecraft functional blocks.

Honeycombs are drops that bees produce when they start pollination, with beehives and bee nests falling between 1 and 3 honeycombs. Honeycombs are used to make beehives. Two honeycombs are produced for every 3 honey blocks collected from a hive and can be used to make wax blocks or frames that make bee action more productive.

How to Obtain Honey in Minecraft?

You can obtain honey in Minecraft in two ways. The first way is to find it naturally inside a bee nest that can be hanging from a tree or cliffside. These nests can be recognized by their distinct yellow appearances. The second way is to harvest it by using glass bottles on bee hives that are hung from trees that have been filled with it by working bees. The bottles of honey can then be collected and placed in your inventory for whatever purpose you have.

Finding Bee Nests

The only way to get honey in Minecraft 1.18 is to find and harvest Bee Nests, which are naturally-generated Blocks, often found hanging from trees.

Bee Nests spawn naturally on trees in Flower Forests, Plains, Sunflower Plains, and Rolling Hills biomes, as well as generated in Villages and Outposts. They contain a random number of Bees, and obtaining honey is much more reliable than growing it on Beehives.

Honey levels inside Bee Nests and Honeycombs on Bee Nests are randomly generated when they are found, but the amounts of honey are capped at 5 and 3, respectively. Players can tell how much honey a Bee Nest has inside by the color of the Nest. Newly empty Bee Nests are a light yellow color and turn to a white or off-white hue as more honey is produced. Bee Nests are capped with honey at after reaching 2 levels of honey, 3 at levels 4-5, or at level 5 when a filled bottle is removed or certain uses are made.

Using Shears on Bee Nests

Bee nests are naturally occurring objects that can be found in oak and birch trees in flower forest, plains, and other forest biomes. They contain 1-3 honey levels (0-5 glass bottles), and destroying honey levels destroys the nest.

A bee nest with level 5 honey, the maximum, will drop 3 glass bottles of honey when destroyed with either another bee nest or shears. All other honey levels drop one glass bottle. After destroying, a one-honey nest will become a Beehive block which is much less common since they cannot be moved. They are tight internal bee nest blocks, sturdy, and impervious to liquids. Outside bees swarm to find and start using any nests suitable for them.

Harvesting Honeycombs from Bee Nests

Items needed before acquiring honey from Bee Nests

Source of honey from Bee Nests

• Bee nests spawn naturally on trees in flower biomes. Honey is a sign of settlement and can also be found in villages. Bees will find a new home in abandoned beehives, so there is no need to place nests.
Advantages of acquiring honey from Bee Nests
• The most efficient way to collect honeycomb
• Bee Nests and Hives can be placed in player-owned buildings to act as decorative and functional elements, creating an internal apiary hive.
Disadvantages of acquiring honey from Bee Nets?
• A honey bottle must be used which needs to be crafted. While buildings will be slower to start, they are quicker end to end to fill once surrounded by other hives and nests.
How to get honey from Bee Nests in Minecraft steps:
• Equip an empty glass bottle.
• Right-click on a mature bee nest with 3 attached or nearby bees (black or brown representing a busy bee, or yellow representing a working bee).
• Set a campfire 5 blocks under the nest to skip aggravating bees and reduce smoke and noise from bothering bees. Fire makes bees return to the hive. This yields one source of honey.
How to get honey from Bee Nests consistently in Minecraft?
As with any honey block, Build Walls or Slabs near the nest to prevent access to the nest. Use choke points to place and upgrade blocks within and use-store on shelves in wooden structures hidden underground
Using a Campfire near the nest is a great way to gather more bees back to their hive during day and night as they land if there are more than 3 access-blocks that are too high or to the sides. Smoke stops bees from leaving their hives and attacking from other beehives
Gather several nests in one spot to make collection more efficient. Gathering one source of honey from every nest in a single area can be done by using the campfire method or at the same time with multiple hives after which it is possible to collect the molten material that forms on fungi

Using a Bottle on a Bee Nest

Using a bottle on a bee nest is another way to get honeycombs. However, this method potentially has a 33% chance of angering the bee, depending on their mood.

When you encounter a bee merging which has a yellow coding for honey, observe it carefully. Fine-meaning bees are neutral and can be observed and then interacted with their nests depending on their mood. As opposed to hostile bees, who attack when provoked, fine-coded bees do not attack or have a stinger. They may occasionally land on the player’s head and, if they question the status, may be anxiously observed by the player. Be careful to not startle bees with meal or fast mechanical movements and observe if the bees are annoyingly sting him. Feeding flowers to neutral bees encourages their friendliness.

Place the bottle in the intended honey nest cell. If successful, the cell will turn green to indicate the bottle is ready. If the cell begins to become thick and syrupy, remove the bottle immediately. A small amount of honey (1-3 honeycombs, with a single level 1 final honey drop in the right-most region of the GUI) will be available from the bee hive or bee nest if it is served at the right time.

What are the Uses of Honey in Minecraft?

The uses of Honey in Minecraft are as follows:

1. Honey Bottle: You can create honey bottles and eat them to restore 6 hunger points.
2. Beehive: You need a selection of bees and you can create new nests for Forest Biomes and Plains Biomes by combining nests with silk touch.
3. Leather: Leather can be created by using honey to glue rabbit hide together.
4. Semi-Automatic Honey Farm: Automated farms with hoppers can be set up and managed by silk touch to collect even more honey and beehive.

Crafting Honey Blocks

Honey Blocks are crafted items. With four bottles of honey, you can craft one honey block. You use the honey block to create sugar blocks that slow down players walking on them. For context, it takes 40 honeycombs to fill 4 honey bottles.

Beehives can regularly be harvested for honeycomb, usually every 3 to 5 in-game days, making honey blocks farmable and renewable. They are used in redstone designs, traps, and as padding for when falling from high elevations within Minecraft gameplay, another property the sugar block shares.

Healing and Nourishing Effects

One of the reasons honey is useful is its ability to provide healing and nourishing effects. In Java Edition, honey restores 3 health points (1.5 hearts) per drum at each level and it restores 6 health points (3 shanks) in Bedrock Edition.

In Java Edition, honey restores the food level by 1 (0.5 drumstick) per drum at each level, whereas in Bedrock Edition, there is not an option to use honey bottles to consume and restore the food level. Besides these effects, RelatedEffects’s real-world study of the benefits of honey found that honey has many health benefits to ur body such as wound and cough relief, energy supply, and hangover relief. Even if these are not in the game, give your character an ice-cold glass of honey water before calling it a night after a long day’s mining!

Attracting and Repelling Bees

You attract bees by planting flowers close to a bee’s nest up to about 22 blocks away. Bees can also be attracted by the scent of tulip stems, and the scent of the wither rose. Bees will not leave their hives during rainy days, so if you need bees for pollination make sure that it is not raining and especially that there is sun.

After bees have had a chance to pollinate crops, harvest these crops and unlock the buds, seed, seedling, or actual growth of the crops to pollinate. This will encourage pollinating move activity as they become self-sustaining by automatically moving from one crop to another for pollinating purposes. Bees in Minecraft can be repelled by the use of a smoker. Smokers are produced by placing 1 furnace and 1 wood/log above the furnace. The smoker can be used to repel them at any time so long as it is not a rainy day. They will also not be repelled by a smoker except close to if they have recently completed pollination.

The average time for a bee to find and pollinate a plant in Minecraft is about 5 minutes, and bees attack the player with their stingers. Bee stingers are a rare defense weapon and will positively affect those in direct contact with the beehive by turning the player into a beekeeper. Honey intake will increase, and the overall cycle of honey production and pollination will become more noticeable.

Bee repellent and attractant activities:

• Repellant activities: Honey is being manually harvested from the beehive or bees are being attacked with a melee weapon.
• Attractant activities: Bees are pollinating plants or gathering nectar (as shown by pollen points).
• Random Behavior activities: Bees are found around their beehive but are not seen pollinating or gathering nectar.

Crafting Honey Bottles

The fourth way to get honey in Minecraft is to craft honey bottles from either honeycombs or beehives, and then eat the honey from these bottles. Honey bottles can be obtained from a honey source by interacting with honey blocks or beehives with glass bottles.

To obtain honey bottles, destroy nearby beehives to acquire honeycombs then use four honeycombs in a crafting window to get three honey bottles.

Alternatively, farm bees to set up a passive production system, acquire three bottles for three glass blocks, and interact with the hive during the harvest phase, or use a dispenser to work with it at your own discretion. Eating honey bottles restores three hunger points making it slightly better for travelling than cake, which restores two full hunger bars or eight hunger points. However, honey bottles can be stacked, unlike cake, so they do not clog up so many chests or storage systems. They are also available in larger quantities than golden apples or enchanted golden apples which restore more hunger points in one item but also use more hunger points.

What are the Side Effects of Honey in Minecraft?

The only side effects of honey in Minecraft are when players are dealing with bees, beehives, or nests. Bees have a built-in time limit to their lives according to VeilingKiss on the minecraftforum though the limit is only activated when a bee leaves the hive.

If the bee is not near the hive for a few minutes bees can die. Bees that have pollinated grow back to drop the item against a blossom. These drops can damage the surrounding beehives. The damage happens if a bee enters a beehive with more honey-level than can be harvested or filled. It will decrease the honey level by 1-4 levels according to Lifeboat.

If the level reaches zero the bees are unable to enter nor are they able to come out. Bees may have different health issues, as reported by Lifeboat. Bees that have been bitten by a spider, poisoned, or withered will be damaged. In some cases where bees get damaged by fire, they will be immune because they have the Fire Resistance effect.

Aggravating Bees

Obtain honey in Minecraft by aggravating bees. Bees are a neutral-colored mob found in most biomes where there is at least one flower. When bees fly into the nether, they drop nothing. When a bees hive or baby bee is destroyed before the attackers are stopped, bees may die and consequently there is a chance they will drop honey or even a nest. In addition, bees drop xp orbs ranging from 1 to 3 points and may drop pollen which is the term for bees’ nectar. Bees eventually take the pollen to a hive and turn it into honey.

Sticky Blocks and Items

Sticky blocks and items are mainly used for crafting other items, predominantly building tools like slime blocks and honey blocks, not for farming.

Slime balls can be used for creating slime blocks, and honey bottles for honey blocks. Slippery blocks like these have a variety of uses for fun and transportation options, but neither of these applications has any involvement with farming honey specifically.

Sticky blocks in Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft honey are as follows:

1. Coral
2. Coral fan
3. Jack o’lantern
4. Pumpkin
5. Redstone dust
6. Composter

Sticky blocks in the Minecraft Java edition:

1. Slime ball (9 slime balls build 1 slime block)
2. Honeycomb (4 honeycomb harvest 1 honeycomb block)

Limited Supply

On average, 3 bee nests will yield 2 honey bottles every 6 minutes, totaling approximately 32 honey bottles per Minecraft day at maximum production. Bees need only alternate deposits for a new bottle and honeycomb until mature. Use Gamerule’s doDaylightCycle so you may see the updates every moment. One bottle is used for various well-being advantages and the second can be used for honey block making.

You must right-click on the hive with a bottle and select as many honey bottles from the “honey tapping” choices on the inventory screen which will permit you to instantly receive the honey from all hives in a single location. Honey Bottle and Honeycomb are the two key products you can get following having honey bees within a beehive or a bee nest. You can utilize honey arrows to deal with poison or keep farmland better hydrated. If you mix sugar water + honey bottle, you can restore lost energy and save money continually afterwards.

How to Farm Honey in Minecraft?

Honey farming in Minecraft is a relatively involved and costly process where players need to acquire and breed bees, bee nests, and bee hives in order to get honey blocks, honeycombs, and bottled honey. Minecraft bee nests are found in the chest in naturally spawning structures such as villages, strongholds, and dungeons. Minecraft bee hives and bee nests can be crafted by players using bees’ bee nests and up to three honeycombs. Players may also find them in plains, sunflower plains, and glowing mountains biomes either on the ground or under a tree.

Spacebee, who is a Minecraft YouTuber, demonstrates several bee-related positive automation and redstone machines that players can use to farm a large amount of honey. Before building any of these machines and farms, the minimum requirements for developing a prosperous honey farm in Minecraft include raising sufficient bees in order to have enough hives and nests to produce a constant quantity of honey blocks and honeycombs. For a larger farm able to create honeycombs in bulk, they should develop a larger redstone auto-harvester, as Spacebees has developed in her video.

Building an Apiary

An apiary is constructed by breeding bees. Bees are first attracted using flowers to stand beside the beehives built at least 6 blocks away from villages. Using bees, one can generate honey blocks from honeycombs. A honey block can be adjusted to 4 honey bottles whereby loading time can be flattened with a dispenser and glass bottles. Bees will have 8 berries of the same or mixed types close by and will create multiple nests close by to become the closest to them.

Breeding Bees

Bees breed on their own and build more hives in Minecraft, so as long as you have enough hives, you will eventually have excess bees to breed. When a bee pollinates a flower within 10 blocks of its hive, it will eventually turn the flower into a hive containing one adult and one baby bee. The adult bee will leave to build a new hive when it is a baby adult.

Bees breeding depends on there being enough flowers around the hives where the bees are. Bees need 20 minutes to build a new hive. If they are repeatedly interrupted in the process, the 20-minute counter resets to zero as many times as they are disturbed. A bee needs 25 minutes to mature from a baby bee to worker bee before it can leave the hive to start on new hives.

Using Campfires to Calm Bees

You can use campfires placed under a beehive or nest to collect honeycomb with three levels of smoke that make bees calm. Turning on a campfire beneath a beehive or nest will light it up, producing light level 15 within two blocks

Three levels of smoke are released that make bees calm enough to harvest their honey. The levels are determined by the smoke time and are as follows:

None Required – Light Level 11 or fewer blocks. Bees calm down immediately if light levels are 11 or fewer blocks, this is the easiest level of smoke. Once seen, they will linger for a few seconds then proceed.

5 minutes of Smoke – Light Level 12 to 13 blocks. Bees are under normal circumstances when illuminated at light level 12 to 13 indefinitely. Smoke them so that they become infatuated in this state. By keeping the campfire burning for 1 minute after lighting so the flames have begun to reduce, this requires reinforced campfire, while smoldering reheat again with flammable material to get the flame to smoke.

10 minutes of Smoke – Light Level 14 or more blocks. Bees are less likely to bee aggressive in well-lit conditions of 14+ blocks of after three minutes of interference in the same glowing environment. Bee aggression is now just a minor issue even after three minutes. All it does bring a day and see bees continue to produce at the messy levels for themselves.

Harvesting Honey from Hives

Honey can be harvested from the bee’s nests by breaking the Nest or Hive with anything that is not an axe. To harvest honey from a bee nest, the bees will need to be calm before trying to harvest it. Bees are calm with (0 to 49) going towards (-) of light level, with smoke from a campfire, or when the player/npc right-clicks the bees with a glass bottle. Up to 1-3 bottles of honey are dropped from a nest at level 5 or higher with honey in it, as well as a number of bees spending their entire food excess into honey. In Bedrock, the amount of honey bottles dropped is double at 2-6. If any bees are inside the nest, the player will take 2 points of piercing damage, plus an extra 1 of piercing damage if the player is collecting in dangerous biomes such as soul sand valley.

When a hive is full of honey and the prompt to collect honey is there, using a tool with Silk Touch is recommended as it allows the hive to drop as an item. Be careful when breaking the nest as any bees around it quickly turn hostile and swarm the player. In that instant, the player can acquire the Angry Kittens achievement. If the player/npc right-clicks the bees with a bottle, the bees get pulled out from everything else they were doing, and more influence should be assigned to them.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Get Honey in Minecraft?

Honey is a sweet and delicious food source in Minecraft that can be used in various recipes and to tame bees. If you’re wondering how to get honey in Minecraft, check out these frequently asked questions for all the details.

What is the best way to get honey in Minecraft?

The best way to get honey in Minecraft is by using a beehive or bee nest. These can be found in flower biomes or can be crafted using wood blocks and honeycomb. Simply right-click on the beehive or bee nest with an empty bottle to collect honey.

Can you get honey from wild beehives in Minecraft?

Yes, you can get honey from wild beehives in Minecraft. However, you will need to use a silk touch tool to collect the beehive without angering the bees. Once you have the beehive, you can then use a bottle to collect honey from it.

How do you use smokers to collect honey in Minecraft?

Smokers are a useful tool for collecting honey in Minecraft. Simply place the smoker next to the beehive or bee nest and add fuel to the smoker. The bees will become docile and you can then collect honey safely.

Can you get honey from tamed bees in Minecraft?

Yes, you can get honey from tamed bees in Minecraft. Once you have tamed a bee by feeding it a flower, it will follow you around and can be right-clicked with an empty bottle to collect honey. However, be careful not to hit the bee or it will become angry and sting you.

What are some uses for honey in Minecraft?

Honey has several uses in Minecraft, including crafting honey blocks, honey bottles, and honeycomb blocks. It can also be used to tame and breed bees, and to speed up the growth of crops. Additionally, honey can be used in various food recipes, such as honey bread and honey glazed chicken.