How to get Honeycomb in Minecraft and use it to start a beekeeping operation

• You can get Honeycomb in Minecraft by using a pair of Shears on a Bee Nest or Beehive.
• Grabbing the Honeycomb will anger all of the bees inside, so be careful.
• You can use Honeycomb to craft Beehives, Candles, and Waxed Copper.

The Minecraft fanbase went wild when Mojang announced that bees were coming to the game. And who could blame them — have you seen how cute these things are?

But just like the real world, once a creature or item gets added to Minecraft, it has an effect on the rest of the game. And along with bees came the new Honeycomb item. Honeycomb can be used to craft Candles, Waxed Copper, and even more Beehives.

In other words, once you've got enough Honeycomb, you can start your own self-sustaining Honeycomb farm. It's beekeeping without the stuffy white safety suits.

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How to get Honeycomb in Minecraft

There's only one way to get Honeycomb in Minecraft: You'll need to use a pair of Shears on a Bee Nest or Beehive. Let's go through it step-by-step.

Find the Bee Nest

You can craft Shears using two Iron Ingots, which themselves you can get by smelting Iron Ore. Place one Iron Ingot in your Crafting Table's middle slot, and the other Ingot in the bottom-left slot.

Next, you'll need to find a Bee Nest with honey inside. Bee Nests spawn randomly in trees across the world, and you'll always find bees buzzing nearby. But even after you find one, you won't be able to harvest its Honeycomb until it's filled with honey.

Whenever it's daytime and not raining, a Bee Nest's bees will scatter to look for pollen. And once a bee returns to the Nest and leaves again, the Nest's "honey level" will go up by one. When the honey level hits five, you'll see honey start to ooze out of the Nest. This means it's ready to go.

Harvest the Honeycomb

Approach the Nest and use your Shears on it. Three units of Honeycomb will pop out, and its honey level will fall to zero again.

But be careful — when you harvest from a Bee Nest, all the bees inside will pop out too and start chasing you. They won't stop chasing you until you're stung, which will deal instant damage and poison you for a few seconds.

Quick tip: You can avoid angering the bees by lighting a fire directly below the Nest, or a campfire within five blocks below it. The smoke from the fire calms the bees, stopping them from attacking you.

Repeat this process as many times as you need to gather all the Honeycomb you want. Bee Nests will never expire as long as the bees in the area stay alive.

How to use Honeycomb in Minecraft

There are a few different crafting recipes that involve Honeycomb.

First, you can use your Honeycomb to make a Beehive. Beehives work exactly the same as Bee Nests, but you can place them wherever you want. To craft a Beehive, fill the top and bottom rows of your Crafting Table with Planks, and fill the middle row with Honeycomb.

Note: Beehives don't come with bees included — you'll need to either wait for bees to find the hive naturally, or lure them to the hive with flowers (bees will follow anyone holding a flower). Each Beehive can house up to three bees at once.

Next, you can make Candles. Candles act as a light source when placed down, although you'll need to light them with Flint and Steel. To craft a Candle, just place one piece of String above one piece of Honeycomb.

Forming a square anywhere on your Crafting Table with four pieces of Honeycomb will give you a Honeycomb Block. This is a purely decorative block that's patterned to look like Honeycomb.

Finally, combining one piece of Honeycomb with anything made of copper will give you Waxed Copper. Waxing your copper items will stop them from oxidizing, which lets them keep their original color.