To get honeycomb in Minecraft, use shears on a bee nest or beehive that is full of honey: it drops 3 honeycombs. Put a lit campfire under it first, no more than five blocks below, or the bees inside attack you. A glass bottle on the same full hive gives a honey bottle instead.
Honeycomb is the wax of Minecraft: it keeps copper from turning green, makes candles and beehives, and freezes signs and copper golems. Here is where to find bees, how to harvest without getting stung, a farm that refills itself, and what honey and honeycomb are for, as it works in Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.50.
Step 1: find a bee nest
Bee nests hang under the leaves of oak, birch, cherry and mangrove trees. Each natural nest holds 2 or 3 bees, and how often a tree carries one depends on the biome:
| Biome |
Chance per tree |
| Meadow |
Every tree |
| Plains, Sunflower Plains, Cherry Grove |
5% |
| Flower Forest |
2% in Java, 3% in Bedrock |
| Mangrove Swamp |
1% |
| Forest, Birch Forest |
0.2% in Java, 0.035% in Bedrock |
A meadow, in the hills below snowy peaks, is the sure thing. Elsewhere, plant oak or birch saplings within 2 blocks of flowers: each tree that grows has a 5% chance of coming with a nest, bees included.
Step 2: calm the bees with a campfire
Harvesting a hive makes its bees angry, unless smoke rises into it.
- Place a Campfire no more than five blocks under the nest, lit, with nothing blocking the smoke on the way up.
- Bees that fly into the fire take damage: a carpet on the campfire protects them. In Java, the smoke still calms the bees through the carpet; in Bedrock, the carpet blocks it, so leave the campfire bare there.
- An angry bee stings once, which can poison you for a few seconds, then loses its stinger and dies soon after.
Step 3: harvest honeycomb or honey
A nest or hive fills from honey level 0 to 5, one level each time a bee comes home from pollinating flowers. At level 5, honey drips from it, and you pick one of two harvests:
| Tool |
You get |
Then |
| Shears |
3 honeycombs |
The level goes back to 0 |
| Glass Bottle |
1 honey bottle |
The level goes back to 0 |
Bottling honey with a campfire below earns the "Bee Our Guest" advancement, which our advancements checklist ticks off with all the others.
To move a nest, break it with a Silk Touch tool: the bees stay inside and come with it. Without Silk Touch, a nest drops nothing and its bees come out angry.
A bee farm that refills itself
- Get bees home: carry a nest with Silk Touch, or lead wild bees by holding a flower, which they follow.
- Craft beehives: six planks and three honeycombs make a Beehive. Each holds up to 3 bees.
- Plant flowers all around: bees fill a hive by pollinating flowers, and two bees fed a flower each make a baby bee.
- Put a campfire under each hive, five blocks down at most.
- Automate if you like: a dispenser facing the hive, loaded with shears or glass bottles, harvests it when powered, and a redstone comparator reads the honey level, 0 to 5, to fire it at 5.
Bees stay home at night and in the rain, so a farm fills by day, in clear weather.
What honeycomb and honey are for
| Item |
What it makes or does |
| Honeycomb |
Wax: use it on copper, or craft a Waxed Block of Copper, to stop oxidation |
| Honeycomb |
A Candle (with string), a Honeycomb Block (4), a beehive (3) |
| Honeycomb |
Used on a sign, locks its text; used on a copper golem, keeps it from turning into a statue |
| Honey Bottle |
Drink it to cure Poison and fill some hunger |
| Honey Bottle |
3 Sugar on a crafting table, or a sticky Honey Block from 4 bottles |
Waxing is also what keeps a copper golem sorting forever: our copper golem guide shows where the honeycomb goes. Every recipe here, and the rest, is in our crafting recipes.
