How to Keep Bees in Minecraft

Co-authored by Zac Churchill

Last Updated: August 7, 2024

Bees are a mob introduced in the 1.15 Update. They fly around, pollinating flowers and producing honey. Keeping bees can be confusing, but this article will explain exactly how to do it.

How to Tame Bees in Minecraft

While you cannot technically tame bees, they will follow you around if you carry a flower with you in your inventory. You can also keep a beehive near your base to keep a colony as pets.

Steps

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1
Travel to the plains, forest, or flower forest biome. Keep an eye out for a bee nest hanging on the bottom of a tree or bees flying around.
2
Put some flowers nearby for the bees to pollinate. They will fly around the flowers for around 30 seconds and eventually gain an animation of pollen dripping from their abdomen.^{[1]
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Research source} Then, the bees fly back to their nest and deposit the honey.
- The flowers must not be more than three blocks away from the bees nest, or the bees won't be attracted.^{[2]
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3
Put a campfire below the nest. This will stop the bees from attacking you when you try to obtain honey or honeycomb. Campfires can be crafted with 3 sticks, one piece of charcoal, and 3 logs.
- The bee could accidentally fly into the fire and burn to death. If this happens, dig a hole below the hive and place the campfire there.
4
Use shears on the nest once it is full. This will be indicated by the design of the block. Using shears on the nest will get you 3 honeycomb, which you should use to craft a beehive.
- The beehive crafting recipe is 3 honeycomb in the middle row and wooden planks in every other slot. They function almost exactly like a bee nest.
- You can skip this step if you have a silk touch tool. Then, you can wait until the bees go back into the nest at nighttime and break the nest, trapping the bees inside. Transport the nest to your bee enclosure.
5
Put the bees on a lead. Leads can be crafted with one slimeball and one piece of string, although an easier way to get them is by killing llamas from the Wandering Trader. Right-click the bee while holding the lead, and it will follow you.
- Don’t move too fast or the lead will break.
- Get at least two bees so that you can breed them.
6
Lure the bees with a flower if you don't have a lead. Bees will follow you if you are holding any flower. This method is tedious but cheap.
7
Build an enclosure. You should put a door for your own exit, but make sure there are no gaps for the bees to escape. Block up any water sources since they are dangerous to your bees. Put flowers inside the enclosure.
- Crops grow faster when bees with pollen fly over them. You can use this to your advantage by putting the crops in between the flowers and the nest/hive.
8
Place down the beehive. You can keep campfires permanently lit beneath them so that they never get angry with you. Place some carpet over the campfires.
9
Lure the bees inside. Use either the lead or a flower as you did before. If you picked up the bee's nest using silk touch, simply place it down.
10
Breed the bees by feeding flowers to two adults. This will give you a baby bee, which will grow to become an adult in 20 minutes. Keep in mind that the hive can only house 3 bees each, so you'll need to make more if you keep breeding them.
11
Wait until the hive is full of honey. Using a glass bottle will get you a honey bottle that can cure poison or be crafted into the honey block.
- Honey blocks are useful for redstone and parkour. To craft them, arrange four honey bottles in a square formation.

Community Q&A

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Question

Can you keep a bee as a pet and if you can, can you mount and fly it?

Seasalt25

Top Answerer

You can keep a bee as a pet if you want to, but not in the same way you can a dog or a cat. You cannot tame bees and they will not follow you like dogs will unless you are holding a flower. You can however keep a beehive in or near your base to keep bees as pets. You can't mount or fly a bee either.

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Question

How do you let bees "stay" next to the hive? I had bees all around my house.

Seasalt25

Top Answerer

Bees will wander around their hives on their own to find flowers or attack players. You can keep them around their hive by building an enclosure around them, trapping them inside.

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Question

Does this work in the pocket edition?

ILikeSlugs

Community Answer

Yes. Bees were added in Bedrock Edition 1.14.0 on December 11, 2019 along with other bee-related stuff like beehives, honey, honeycomb, etc.

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