- To get honeycomb in Minecraft, players need to find a full bee nest, make shears, and a campfire.
- Place the campfire below the bee nest or beehive so that bees don't attack the player.
- Right-click the full bee nest or beehive with shears to extract honeycomb, which players can then pick up.
Honeycomb has instantly leveled up its significance in Minecraft after the addition of all sorts of copper blocks. Copper changes its color through various oxidation states, but some like keeping it in a specific hue. This is where honeycomb comes into play, helping you to wax the copper items. So, whether you want to wax your precious copper blocks, craft candles, or build beehives and an army of bees, check this guide to learn how to get honeycomb in Minecraft and all of its uses in the game.
Requirements for Harvesting Honeycomb in Minecraft
Before learning how to get honeycomb in Minecraft, you will need a few essential items. As it goes without saying, you need to study the behavior of Minecraft bees before dealing with them, because they’re the most significant requirement. Learn how to get bees in Minecraft and then gather the following items to obtain a honeycomb.
| Items | Quantity | How to Obtain |
|---|---|---|
| Shears | 1x | Craft with 2 iron ingots |
| Full Bee Nest or Beehive | 1x | Find one that naturally generates on trees housing the bees |
| Campfire | 1x | Make it using charcoal, sticks, and wooden logs |

Shears in Minecraft are the only tool capable of harvesting honeycomb. Place two iron ingots diagonally next to each other on the crafting table or in the crafting grid of your inventory to craft it in Minecraft.
And when it comes to the campfire, it can be crafted from a few basic ingredients. You may follow our guide on how to make a Minecraft campfire, and you won’t have issues getting it.
How to Harvest Honeycomb in Minecraft
While you can craft beehives using honeycomb and wooden planks, that would only be possible when you have the former ingredient. So, you must look for the bee nests first in Minecraft. Here’s the full process on how to harvest a Honeycomb in Minecraft:
Step 1: Locate a Bee Nest or Beehive
Bee nest blocks can contain a maximum of three bees at the same time, all of which become hostile if you attack the bee nest. The bee nest spawns in the following Minecraft biomes:
- Meadow
- Plains
- Sunflower Plains
- Mangrove Swamp
- Flower Forest
- Forest
- Birch Forest

Among these, only the meadow biome has a 100% spawn rate of bees, while Plains, Sunflower Plains, and the Cherry Grove biomes have only a 5% chance. So if you wish to go bee hunting, we suggest you look for it. Meanwhile, if you want to pick up the bee nest, you need to use the Silk Touch enchantment with any of your tools.
You can further notice the golden colored liquid dripping from the holes of the bee nest to make sure that it’s filled with honey. This suggests that the bee nest has Honey level 5, and it is ready to harvest.
Step 2: Calm the Bees with Smoke
Once you have made sure that the bee nest is filled with honey, place a campfire beneath the bee nest. This will create smoke that prevents bees from turning hostile and attacking you. So, you can easily get honeycomb without getting stung.


You can further use a setup with trapdoors to restrict the smoke’s path and reach the campfire. This is important, as a protected campfire will prevent the bees from flying through the flames
Step 3: Harvest Honeycomb Using Shears
Once the Bee Nest or Beehive reaches Honey Level 5, equip your Shears and follow the steps below to harvest Honeycomb in Minecraft.
- Interact with the bee nest or beehive with your Shears equipped to drop the honeycomb.
- Both blocks can drop between 1 and 3 honeycombs, depending on the honey level of the block.
- The campfire keeps the bees away and doesn’t anger them while you are collecting honeycomb from the blocks. This way, you can get honeycomb without getting stung.
- The same procedure is followed when you want to get honey from a beehive in Minecraft.


How to Build an Automatic Honeycomb Farm in Minecraft (Redstone Setup)
If you only need a few Honeycombs, manually shearing a bee nest or a beehive is the easiest option. But when you need lots of them to wax your copper blocks or use in other recipes, switching to an automated Honeycomb farm is going to be more convenient.
Required Materials
For a compact five-bee nest or beehive design, you need to gather the following items:
- 5x beehives
- 15x bees
- 5x Minecraft Dispensers
- Shears
- 5x Observers
- Redstone Dust
- Building Blocks
- Glass Blocks
- 10x Flowers and Grass Blocks
- 1x Hopper
- Several Rails
- 2x Powered Rails
- 1x Lever

Step-by-Step Automated Honeycomb Farm Guide
The automated Honeycomb farm in Minecraft has three main systems:
- Beehives and flowers: Bees will leave the hives, collect pollen from nearby flowers, and return with the honey.
- Observer and Dispenser system: Observers detect changes to the beehives and trigger Dispensers containing Shears.
- Collection system: The honeycomb dropped by the Dispensers is collected by a Hopper in Minecraft, which gets transferred to a nearby chest.
For detailed steps on making a Honeycomb farm, you can check out the tutorial by WingsOfEnd. Some of these redstone components in Minecraft can be confusing to understand at times, and that is where the linked tutorial will help you out.
All Honeycomb Uses in Minecraft
Now that you know how to get honeycombs in Minecraft, it’s time to put them to good use. Honeycomb has several crafting recipes and unique interactions that make it a valuable resource, especially if you’re a mid-game player surrounded by copper tools and blocks. So, these are the uses of honeycomb in Minecraft:
- Waxing Copper Blocks: Combine any Minecraft copper block or item with honeycomb to get its waxed version and prevent it from oxidising.
- Craft Beehives: Combining three honeycombs with six wooden planks lets you craft a beehive. It is the perfect starting ingredient to make your bee farm in Minecraft.
- Craft Candles: Combine a thread with a honeycomb on a crafting grid to get candles in Minecraft.
- Make Honeycomb Blocks: A honeycomb block can be made by combining 4x honeycombs. It can be fed to a Minecraft Sulfur Cube to get the sticky archetype.
- Lock Signs: Interact with a signboard while holding a honeycomb to lock it and prevent it from being edited on your Minecraft servers.


This completes the guide on how to get honeycomb in Minecraft using beehives and bee nests. So, you are now ready to collect an unlimited number of honeycombs without ever getting attacked by the bees. Having said that, don’t waste any more time and go get honeycomb right away.
You can leave a campfire under the beehive in Minecraft, but keep in mind that bees can still take damage on them. So, surround the campfire so bees don’t accidentally kill themselves. By using trapdoors, you’ll save up space.
A full bee nest or a beehive drops 3 honeycombs when harvested with Shears.
A bee nest or a beehive is ready to harvest when it reaches honey level 5. You will see honey dripping at the bottom of the block, indicating that honey is ready to be collected.
Yes, since Shears have a durability threshold, they will eventually break after enough honeycomb shearing from the bee nest or beehive.
