Bee

"A MINDLESS DRONE. I LIKE HIM."

- WX-78

Bees are neutral insects living in Beehives and Bee Boxes. While their aggressive variant - the Killer Bee - is charged with the protection of the nest, the primary function of these normally docile creatures is Honey production. If provoked however, they do join fights to defend the hive. Bees take one blast from the Ice Staff to be frozen. When killed, they drop either a bit of Honey or a Stinger. 3 hits with spear, hambat, and batbat, and 2 with tentacle spike, thulecite club, and dark sword.

Behaviour
Bees are usually seen traveling between their nest and nearby Flowers during the day. They leave their nest in the morning one at a time at regular intervals and all return home at dusk or when they have collected pollen from 6 different sources. When they reach a Flower, they will usually land on it for a short time before moving on again. The closer the Flowers are to the nest, the faster the Bees will produce Honey. However gathering rate only affects Honey contained in Bee Boxes, the amount is fixed at 3 in Beehives. 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 Walls, Bees can not 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 can't be forced to spawn Flowers like Butterflies, 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.

Combat Behaviour

 * Unlike Killer Bees, proximity to other creatures doesn't trigger aggression.


 * They attack in response to a "cry for help" from a member of their own hive; that is if a Killer Bee or worker Bee is hit or caught with a Bug Net. Bees already outside engage from about a screen afar while those still inside all leave the hive immediately and attack regardless of distance (though they give up the chase after 8 seconds if they can't reach their target). Bees belonging to different hives don't cooperate with each other at all. Those however that don't have a home do assist any hive as if they belonged to it, and vice versa any hive will aid a hiveless bee for up to 10 members combined.


 * They ignore all attacks against their home: Regular Beehives will respond to threats with Killer Bees, the player can not attack Bee Boxes and there are no workers in Killer Bee Hives. Fire is a special case that doesn't drive the hive to attack even if the player directly hits their home with a Fire Dart for example. Instead Bee Hives eject all those inside as worker Bees while Killer Bee Hives spawn Killer Bees.


 * When harvesting honey from a Bee Box, bees still inside emerge as workers and attack while those already outside ignore the intruder and continue their normal behaviour unless the player fights back.  This means that it's perfectly safe to harvest a Bee Box if all the bees are outside.

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. Catching a Bee counts as an attack and triggers the same reaction.

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.

Trivia

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