How to get Minecraft honeycomb and what to craft with it

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Make candles, beehives, and more with Minecraft Honeycomb

Minecraft Honeycomb
(Image credit: Mojang)

Minecraft honeycomb is a resource used to craft candles, beehives, and honeycomb blocks. This yellow goo is also incredibly handy if you want to prevent copper objects from oxidizing or if you'd like to seal the text you've written on a wooden sign. Beware though; you can't get Minecraft honeycomb without encountering some Minecraft bees... And they aren't happy if you loot their home.

Here's how to obtain honeycombs in Minecraft in a safe way, plus how to craft beehives and wax items.

How to get Minecraft honeycomb

Minecraft Honeycomb

(Image credit: Mojang)

You can get Minecraft honeycomb from either a bee nest or beehive. Once it reaches honey level 5, you can collect the honey by shearing it with a pair of shears. This will drop three honeycombs, but will also make any bees inside angry, causing them to attack you – to avoid this, start a fire below the bee nest or beehive, as the smoke will calm the bees and they won't become hostile towards you.

With a little bit of ingenuity, there is another way to harvest Minecraft honeycomb without incurring the bee's wrath. If you set up a dispenser and use it to launch a pair of shears at a bee nest, then the honeycomb will appear as a dropped item but the bees won't become hostile.

Minecraft honeycomb crafting recipes

(Image credit: Mojang)

There are a number of Minecraft honeycomb crafting recipes you can produce, with one of the main ones being for a beehive, as shown above – because this involves sandwiching three honeycombs between six planks, you'll need to have obtained some honeycomb already from a bee nest or otherwise found it. You can also combine four honeycombs to make a honeycomb block, which is a decorative item - nice to place in a lovely Minecraft house.

(Image credit: Mojang)

Another Minecraft honeycomb crafting recipe is to combine a honeycomb with string above it to produce a candle, which can then be lit with flint and steel and used as a light source. Finally, you can combine one honeycomb with one copper item (a block, slab, or stairs) to create the waxed version of the original copper item, which looks identical but prevents the copper from oxidizing further. If you need it, we can help you get more Minecraft Copper.

Now that you've got Minecraft honeycombs and beehives, be sure to get a Minecraft enchantment table too.

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Iain Wilson
Iain Wilson
Guides Editor

Iain originally joined Future in 2012 to write guides for CVG, PSM3, and Xbox World, before moving on to join GamesRadar in 2013 as Guides Editor. His words have also appeared in OPM, OXM, PC Gamer, GamesMaster, and SFX. He is better known to many as ‘Mr Trophy’, due to his slightly unhealthy obsession with amassing intangible PlayStation silverware, and he now has well over 900 Platinum pots weighing down the shelves of his virtual award cabinet. He does not care for Xbox Achievements.

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