How to make a beehive and collect honey easily in Minecraft 1.18

Regardless of the reason a Minecraft player might want honey, they're not likely to get it without the assistance of bees.

As bees fill their nests with honey, players can extract it with glass bottles. However, Minecraft gamers can also create artificial beehives to house nearby bees, providing easy access to honey whenever the hive fills up.

With some easy-to-access resources and some wise block placement, players can create a renewable and quick source of honey to harvest as they see fit. However, players will want to be careful, as upsetting bees is an easy way to be stung and incur poison damage over time.

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Minecraft: Creating a beehive and populating it with bees

A construct consisting of both bee nests and beehives (Image via Mojang)

To harvest honey in Minecraft safely and effectively, players will need some beehives, a few sources of fire like a campfire, and of course, some bees. Beehives can be crafted by combining six wooden plank blocks and three honeycombs (harvested from bee nests with shears).

With that being the case, players should seek out a bee nest before getting started. They should bring a campfire with them, as this will be vital to keeping the bees from becoming angry.

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Once players find a bee nest in a forest or plains biome, they'll want to place the campfire block below it. The campfire must be no lower than five blocks under the nest, or the smoke will not pacify the bees. Once the fire is doing its job, players can extract honey or honeycombs from the nest without bees getting hostile.

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What to do after creating a beehive

After Minecraft players have created their beehives with honeycombs and planks, they should place them near each other and surround them with as many flowers and azalea bushes as possible. Players must then relocate the bees they found earlier.

This can be done in a few ways but is easiest when players use a "Silk Touch" tool to break the nest once all of its bees are inside. Bee nests can be relocated and placed among the beehives or destroyed once the bees relocate to the hives.

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Bees can also be attracted by players holding flowers or azalea, which will have the bees follow them, similar to how cows follow wheat. Players should unequip the flowers once they get close enough to the hives. If the hives are far enough away from the original nest, bees should re-home the nests.

Be sure to place campfires under the new beehives, as they are still integral in pacifying bees.

Once all of these steps have been taken, continue surrounding the hives with as many flowers as possible. Bees will exit their hives during clear days to collect the pollen, then return to the hive to make honey. Once the hive is oozing full of honey, bottles can be used to extract the honey.