How to Keep Bees and Get Honey (Valheim)

Honey is a surprising valuable resource in Valheim. In addition to being the food with the best healing per tick, it is also a key ingredient in every mead recipe. Getting honey isn’t as easy as finding meat or berries, so in this guide we’ll show you how to craft Beehives and get that sweet, sweet reward.

How and Where to Find a Queen Bee

In order to craft a Beehive, you’ll first need to find a Queen bee. Fortunately, you can find them in the very first biome you spawn in, the Meadows. Beehives spawn in abandoned structures (the old villages and huts you find scattered throughout the Meadows), so as you explore the Meadows, make sure you carefully investigate any buildings you see.

How To Keep Bees And Get Honey — *Bee hives seem to always spawn attached to abandoned buildings in the Meadows*

How To Keep Bees And Get Honey Hive 2 — *Bee hives seem to always spawn attached to abandoned buildings in the Meadows*

Once you find a beehive, you’ll have to destroy it with a weapon. While you can attack the hive with a melee weapon (assuming you can reach it), the bees will attack you. Using a bow is a much safer bet.

How To Keep Bees And Get Honey Shooting Down The Hive

Once you destroy the hive, a Queen bee will drop from it (along with some honey if you’re lucky). Grab it and head back to your base!

How To Keep Bees And Get Honey Queen Bee — *The Queen bee is surprisingly docile considering you just destroyed her home*

How to Craft a Beehive

This is the easy part. To craft a Beehive, you only need 10 wood and your Queen bee. As always, you’ll have to be near a Crafting station in order to build a Beehive. Equip your hammer, find a fairly open area, and then go to the Crafting tab to find the Beehive and place it.

You’ll know you placed the Beehive correctly if when you press E on the hive, you get the message “The bees are happy”. If instead the bees are angry, that means that they need more room, and you should deconstruct the Beehive with your hammer and find a more open area for your Beehive.

Bees Are Happy How To Keep Bees Get Honey — *You can tell by their happy buzzing*

The Beehive will slowly generate honey, and can only store 4 at a time, so make sure to harvest it often. Since honey is a great food for use in combat and lets you craft meads, you should do your best to find at least a few Queen bees in the Meadows any time you find yourself in that biome.

That’s all you need to know about being a Viking beekeeper! We hope this guide was helpful. Let us know if you have suggestions or questions in the comments below.