The Difference Between a Beehive and Bee Nest

Bees were first introduced to Minecraft with the 1.15 update in 2019. Bees provide you with honey and honeycomb and can help your crops grow faster. Bees live in both Beehives and Bee nests, there are three bees per nest or hive so you will need to know how to craft a Beehive if you want to breed them to grow you Bee farm.

Beehives and bee nests are similar but there are some notable differences, for example bee hives can be crafted while bee nests may not. This article will discuss how bees work and the differences between beehives and bee nests in detail.

Bees in Minecraft

Bees naturally spawn in bee nests and can be used to make honeycomb and honey. Bees are non aggressive mobs that can be useful in farms. Bees gravitate towards flowers and will pollinate the flowers near by. If you want bees near your base you will nee to make sure there are plenty of flowers near by so they don't have to fly far away.

Once a bee has gone over to a flower to pollinate it you will notice small yellow droplets coming from the back of the bee. The bee will then start heading towards its home to create honey. If a pollinated bee flies over any crops on its way some of the pollination will fall onto the crops and act like a small amount of bone meal. You will notice that the crop will have a green aura come from it and it will help accelerate the plant's growth.

While bees are not initially aggressive you have to be careful not to anger them because they swarm around you and sting you if provoke. You can anger bees by attacking an individual bee or destroying their bee nest. Once you have been stung you will take slight damage and have a poison affect that last for a minute. After bees sting they lose their stinger and will eventually die.

Bees are attracted to flowers, and if you hold one in your hand they will start to follow you. You can easily breed bees by feeding a flower to two adult bees. Once you feed a bee a flower you will notices heart animations coming from it this means it is ready to breed. When you feed another bee a flower the two bees will come together and a baby bee will spawn. Just remember that only three bees can occupy either a bee nest or beehive so you need to make sure you have plenty of space for all your bees.

What can you get from beehives and bee nests?

You can collect two different items from both beehives and bee nests. You can collect either Honeycomb or Honey. Before you collect anything from either you need to place a fire camp underneath the beehive or bee nest to make sure the bees are calm and won't attack.

Honeycomb can be collected by using shears. Honeycomb is a necessary ingredient to make more beehives. You will likely have to find a bee nest in the wild and collect honeycomb before you can make any beehives to house more bees. You can also use honeycomb to craft candles and waxed copper.

If you like the look of the honeycomb you can make honeycomb blocks using four honeycombs. These blocks can be a great addition to your bee farm. The blocks don't really have much use other than a building block, when you walk over the honeycomb blocks you will hear a squishy sound.

Honey can be collected using glass bottles, it will be in a liquid form. You can drink the honey and recover some of your hunger. You can also use honey to make sugar or potions to help alleviate a poison affect.

Similar to honeycomb blocks you can make a honey block by using four bottles of honey. These blocks have more use than their honeycomb block counterparts. Honey blocks are sticky and can be used in conjunction with pistons to make for some creative redstone builds.

What is a beehive

A beehive is a craftable block that can be used to house bees. You need three honeycombs and six planks (any type of wood) to build a beehive. Once you build a beehive you can place it in your world, and bees that are close by will choose to make that beehive their home. A beehive can hold up to three bees each.

Beehives unlike bee nests can easily be moved about in your world. You can break the block and put it in your inventory without needing silk touch. If you break the beehive without silk touch you will not carry the bees with you.

What is a bee nest

A bee nest is similar to a beehive, you can interact with a bee nest the same way with you would with a beehive. However bee nests are not craftable, you can only find them out in the wild. Bee nests look slightly different than a beehive.

You will need to be careful with the bee nests, if you break the block without using silk touch the block will despawn and you will have to find another bee nest. If you want to move bees and a bee nest to your farm, you can easily do so by waiting for the bees to get inside the bee nest and then break it using silk touch.

When you use silk touch the bees will travel inside the bee nest in your inventory. Bees are mainly active during the day and will retreat into their nests at night. If you want to move the bees, you can wait for the sun to go down to insure all the bees go back inside their nest before you break the bee nest.

Differences between beehive and bee nest

Where to find bee nests

Bee nests grow on either oak trees and birch trees. They can be found in a variety of biomes but are commonly found in plains, sunflower plains, forests, and flower forests biomes. Bees need flowers to pollinate so when you go out looking for bees start by looking in trees that are near flowers.

When you are going around looking for bees it will help if you hold a flower as you run around checking out all the trees. Since bees are drawn to flowers and may start to follow you. If a bee comes up to you when holding a flower, then a bee nest should be near by. You will want to start looking in that immediate area. If you can't find any bees right away in the area that the bee first came up to you, then you can start looking for areas that have flowers and head towards that direction.

How to spawn a bee nest

If you can't find a bee nest in the wild, you can try to spawn one yourself. There is a small chance that a bee nest will naturally spawn on either an oak tree or birch tree when grown near flowers. To grow trees you will need to first get an oak or birch sapling. After cutting down a tree the leaves will start to despawn and saplings will fall from the leaves and you can pick them up. You can replant oak and birch trees by putting the saplings back on the ground.

Flowers will need to be placed within seven blocks of the tree for you to have a chance of spawning a bee nest. A flower every seven blocks should be sufficient, there is no evidence that your chances of a bee nest spawn goes up if you have more flowers near by.