Bee

"A MINDLESS DRONE. I LIKE HIM."

- WX-78

Bees are neutral insects, which spawn from Beehives and Bee Boxes. They will attack when their nest is disturbed (which includes gathering Honey) or when any bees nearby are caught in a Bug Net. When provoked, up to 6 nearby Bees will become hostile and attack. If the Bees' nest is attacked, any Bees currently inside will emerge and join the attack. Bees take one blast from the Ice Staff to be frozen. When killed, they drop either a bit of Honey or a Stinger.

In addition to normal yellow Bees, red Killer Bees may also be found in and around Beehives. They will attack the player on sight if the beehive is attacked or if a Bee is captured.

Behavior
Bees are usually seen traveling between their nest and nearby Flowers. When they reach a Flower, they will usually land on it for a short time before moving on. The closer the Flowers are to the nest, the faster the Bees will produce Honey. If there are no flowers nearby or if all flowers are occupied, Bees will sometimes simply land on the ground and wait. Although they can fly over all Walls, Bees cannot cross water.

When their link to a beehive is severed, either through catch-and-release or by destroying the hive, a bee will gain the ability to spawn a new flower after pollinating a minimum of 6 different flowers. They cannot be forced to spawn flowers like the Butterfly can, but will do so every once in a while on their own. Both Flowers and Evil Flowers can be spread in this manner, depending upon which type the bee is pollinating.

Hunting
Bees can be found anywhere near a Beehive (which are marked on the map). The easiest way to deal with them is to use the Bug Net. When used, the Net will turn the Bee into an item in inventory, which stacks to 20. Caught Bees can be used to build Bee Boxes and Bee Mines, or Murdered by right-clicking them in inventory to produce a Stinger or Honey.

When attacking Bees with a weapon, other nearby Bees will attack. To help defend against their stings, a Beekeeper Hat may be worn, which decreases the damage taken. Once hit, a Bee will be "stunlocked" and spin around for a moment before recovering. A second hit with most weapons will kill the Bee. Moving around is essential when engaging Bees with melee weapons as the swarm will follow their target for a reasonable distance before giving up, though they're quite slow.

To gather Honeycomb, the Bees' hive must be destroyed. Attacking a Beehive will anger nearby Bees and will also spawn Killer Bees from the nest itself (4-6). The Hive cannot be burned or the Honey and Honeycomb will be destroyed along with it. If there are no bees around a hive, it is likely that the hive is filled with Killer Bees; for normal Bees to spawn again, the Killer Bees must be defeated.

Bugs

 * Bee_bug.png Bees and Killer Bees can still be "caught" after killed if the player equips a Bug Net and presses Space while close to the bee's corpse.

Trivia

 * There are unknown NPCs in the games files with only the name "Keeper", which suggest there were meek beekeeper NPCs.
 * Bees seem to head to Flowers even if the flowers are on fire.