How can we improve the existing moving creatures of Minecraft? Show us your coolest fantasy creatures. We are very interested in ideas that are unique and not just lists of mobs - spamming lists of animal names is spam and violates our posting guidelines. Be sure to check the Previously Considered Suggestion page (no sharks, MINECON Vote rejected monsters) before you post!

← Mobs, Animals, and non-Humanoids
17
Follow

Bees should heal when in their hive.

Per title.

Bees currently require a fairly high level of maintenance.  Left to their own devices in an open field with open water sources and campfires under the hives, the population will gradually dwindle as the bees either wander off or take a point of damage here in the water, a point of damage there in a campfire, and so on until they die.  The player must either 1) contrive some solution (e.g. covering all open water and covering all campfires; putting leads on bees with pollen and tying them to a fence post in the middle of a crop field; keeping all crops and bees in a sealed building; etc.) or 2) keep breeding the bees to keep the population up.

No other mob requires this level of effort to maintain.  I can leave my cows in a pen forever and only breed them when I feel like it.  Needing to either alter the aesthetic design of my farm or spend time breeding bees every few days removes some of the fun of having bees.  If bees could regenerate health while in their hive, perhaps by consuming one honey level per point of health restored, beekeeping would be substantially easier without being cheesily so.

(If I am straight-up incorrect in thinking that bees do not regenerate health at all feel free to correct me, but I have seen a bee leave its hive, take a single instance of damage from flying through a waterfall, and die.  This to me is proof positive that bees do not regain health, since a single instance of damage from water is not enough to kill a bee at full health.)

Avatar
Registered User shared this idea

3 Comments

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Date Votes
Sorted by oldest
  • 2
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    So this is kind of an old post, but it's what came up when i searched and I agree. Bee's take a lot of dmg, much like rabits. Due to their small hit boxes they tend to take suffocation dmg very easily. Flying into a block that's not transparent like glass can easily lead them to taking a point of dmg or two. Merely exiting their hive if it's blocked on any side by a solid block can often have them take a tick or two of dmg before they move off.

    Some form of self preservation would be great. Either they heal while in the hive, possibly a small chance to self breed while in a hive with full honey levels or something. The bad AI, low hp and many sources of dmg that can kill a Bee (never mind the fact they die if they sting something) can easily wipe out your entire colony with ease.

    Most automated farms are not too hurt by this, but if you don't want to enclose everything in glass and trap your bee's they are very fragile. It ruins the ability to use them for more aesthetic builds, like having free roaming bee's over your fields.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I recently started bee keeping and this became an immediate issue I've noticed. Frequently when my bees exit the hive, they are still partially inside the hive block and start to receive block suffocation damage. I try to give them flowers to heal them but it doesn't seem to work and the bees slowly die off. I have to continue to breed them in order for the population to stay at peak volume.

    If they slowly regenerated health, or regenerated health in the hive, that would be awesome. Or even if they could just refresh their health entirely in the hive! If I'm not mistaken players used to (or still do) get their health bar replenished when sleeping in a bed. I don't see why it's so different to just give hive-exiting bees full health.

    I don't even think honey levels should be removed. I think they should just leave the hive with full hp every time.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    This. The small population size, rarity, and fragility of bees make me constantly worried something will happen to my colony