Beekeeping

Beehives

Obtaining

Wild beehives can be found on trees. There are two varieties of wild beehives: one that hangs from branches, and one that is embedded in a Large Log. Disturbing these wild hives will anger the bees, which will sting the player, and will not allow the player to take anything from the hive. In order to open the hive, the player will have to calm the bees by lighting a Firepit less than 8 blocks below the hive. Wild Hives will always contain at least one Fertile Honeycomb. If the Fertile Honeycomb is taken, the hive will collapse, leaving some empty combs, which can be made into wax.

Usage

The player can make Basket Hives using a Straw Basket and a Knife. Basket Hives can be populated by placing a Fertile Honeycomb in them. Bees produce combs faster in an Basket Hive. Flowers or blooming fruit tree leaf blocks in the surrounding area will also cause the bees to produce honey and combs faster, while also causing the fruit tree to be fertilized, which will cause it to produce more fruit. The hive will check an area with a radius of 8 blocks horizontally, and 4 blocks upwards and 3 blocks downwards vertically, centered on the hive. Bees will go dormant when the temperature drops below 10 degrees. Occasionally, a Honeycomb produced in a Basket Hive will become another Fertile Honeycomb, which can be used to populate another hive. If hives are too close together, there is a debuff to production, so it is ideal to spread them out from each other.

Basket Hive

Honey

Obtaining

Honey can be extracted from a full honeycomb by crafting it with a knife and a bowl.

Usage

Bowls of honey can be stacked and can contain 250 mb of honey. Honey can be stored in barrels and large vessels. Drinking Honey will restore hunger. Placing a bowl of Honey in a barrel of 9000 mb of Fresh Water will create Honeywater. Honeywater sealed in a barrel will ferment into Mead, which can be further distilled into Honey Brandy.

Wax

Empty honeycombs can be melted in a Large Ceramic Vessel placed on top of a firepit to produce Wax. One empty honeycomb is worth 300 mb of wax. When a piece of string of any kind (excluding Sinew) is placed in Wax, it creates a Candle, which are a safe source of light which do not have the risk of lighting other blocks on fire. One Candle consumes 200 mb of Wax.

Note: Currently, heating more than 8 empty honeycombs at once may not work. Try melting the honeycombs one at a time.

Wax
300 mB 2 hours

Candle
200 mB N/A

History

Beta
0.82.6		Added beehives and honey.
0.83.0		Fix beehives generating too many honeycombs.