How to get beeswax easily in Minecraft

In Minecraft, beeswax, otherwise known as honeycombs, can be acquired from bee nests and beehives.

In addition to being a major component in the creation of beehives, candles, and honeycomb blocks, honeycombs can also be used to wax copper blocks to prevent further oxidation.

Whether players are obtaining them from natural bee nests or man-made beehives, the means to acquire honeycombs are more or less the same.

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Minecraft: Getting wax from nests and hives

For Minecraft players hoping to keep their copper from naturally changing its color, waxing their blocks is the best solution (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft players who are attempting to find a natural bee nest will have to head to particular biomes. Many of these biomes have different spawning percentages for bee nests depending on the version of Minecraft that is running. These biomes and their chances are as follows:

• Plains (5% chance in both Java and Bedrock editions)
• Sunflower plains (5% chance in both Java and Bedrock editions)
• Flower forest (2% chance in Java, 3% in Bedrock)
• Forest (.2% in Java, .035% in Bedrock)
• Wooded hills (.2% in Java, .035% in Bedrock)
• Birch forest (.2% in Java, .035% in Bedrock)
• Tall birch forest (.2% in Java, .035% in Bedrock)
• Birch forest hills (.2% in Java, .035% in Bedrock)
• Tall birch hills (.2% in Java, .035% in Bedrock)

Based on these percentages, it's clear that bee nests, in general, are quite rare. It will likely take a good amount of searching in order to find one. However, the search can be made slightly easier by keeping an eye out for bees in addition to the nest itself. In Minecraft, bees are pretty hard to miss, as they are excessively large compared to their real-world counterparts.

Once players find a bee nest, they should check to see if the nest has any honey coming from the block. If it does, players can use shears to collect honeycombs from the nest. However, simply extracting honeycombs will upset the bees inside and make them hostile. To avoid this, players can light a regular fire or campfire underneath the nest. The smoke will pacify the bees, and players can safely remove the honeycombs.

Additionally, if a player has a tool with the Silk Touch enchantment, they can take the entire nest itself. They can then place the block in another location if they so choose, and the bees inside will be transported inside the block itself.

When players have the honeycombs they need, they may want to build a beehive, which will generate the same materials and doesn't require a long search effort.

To create a beehive, players can place three honeycombs in the center row of the crafting grid with wooden planks on the top and bottom rows.

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