How to Feed Giant Bees Ark

Overview:

When done right, taming a bee can be a really simple, efficient process. However, if one does not make the necessary preparations, or have the right resources, breaking open the bee hive itself can be a huge ordeal, let alone actually taming the queen bee inside.

To put it simply, to tame a queen bee and get a personal beehive for yourself, you need to locate a wild bee hive and attack it until it is destroyed, using your own tools or tames. Once it is destroyed the queen bee herself will pop out. To tame the queen herself, she is a passive tame, meaning you must sneak up behind her and hand feed her kibble, rare flowers or meat. Once you do this enough times, you will have your own queen bee! from there you can pick her up as a hive item in your inventory and place it wherever you please.

Complications:

However, there are a number of complications in this. While you are trying to destroy the hive, it will constantly bee spitting out "drone bees" which will defend the hive, attacking you and any tames involved. In addition those bees can also attack you, even if you are riding on a mount (except for dire bears).

Once you do crack the hive open, the queen bee herself is rather uncooperative. The queen bee hasn't been coded to be able to land, meaning she will fly constantly, quickly getting out of reach from the ground. In addition, the queen bee herself will start spitting out "drone bees" when you are in her vicinity, regardless of whether she can actually see you or not. (Luckily though, the drones will only attack you if they notice you nearby).

These complications mean, without proper preparations, taming a bee of your own can be one of the most irritating ordeals a survivor can undertake.

What Most People Do:

As shown in the spawn map below, bee hives spawn most regularly in the Redwood forest, and as a result, most people choose to find a bee hive there, to tame from. This is most people's first mistake.

A spawn map of wild bee hives taken from the ark wiki

This is many people's first mistake, while the Redwoods forest has the most bee hives of anywhere on the island, they generally spawn high up on the redwoods trees, in inacessible locations, making destroying them require powerful ranged weaponry with large supplies of ammunition, or specific tamed dinosaurs, such as pteranodons and dimorphodons.

And after that, once the hive is destroyed, the queen bee is high in the sky, and as the queen never needs to land, players have to rely on pure luck, hoping the queen bee flies close enough to the ground to be tamed. While the queen is out of the hive, it is highly vulnerable to predators, particularly argentavis and thylacoleo, causing many bees to be killed, wasting the survivor's time, resources and effort.

My Solution:

My solution is to search outside the redwoods, in more coastal regions. Although hives are rarer out there, they are generally much lower to the ground, with far fewer predators (since I search much closer to the coast) increasing the chances of a successful tame. I haven't even spent any time searching specifically for bee hives, and I've already stumbled upon 3 accidentally out near South zone 1.

I also create taming pens around the wild bee hives to virtually guarantee a successful tame. This video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11GZHNxoZDk&t=135s (only 4 minutes long) showcases a very good taming pen for a bee hive. Although it doesn't have to be made of stone. I've found bees can't break wood structures (although they can break thatch, but if you're fast enough you could get away with a thatch taming pen).

A quirk with this type of taming pen is, if it is a one wall high room that fits the hive inside, the drone defenders will spawn outside the pen, however the queen herself will spawn inside the taming pen. This means she can't fly away from you or get eaten by predators.

Then, all you need to do is go outside, out of the queen's aggro range, put your taming food in hand, enter the room while crawling, try to maneuver behind her and spam the feed key/button. (wearing ghillie armour and applying bug repellant helps with this, although it is not required). And with that, you should have your own queen bee, which you can pick up as a bee hive item/structure and place down wherever you want at home!

They make a great addition to a farm (although the unfortunately don't buff crop plots). I've got Dabeebee right at the centre of my farm, churning away, making honey.

Les Gooo

Maintenance:

Then, you have to place rare flowers into the hive's inventory, and it will slowly consume flowers and make honey. Statistics seem to vary, but they make 1x "giant bee honey" every 45 minutes and consume a rare flower either ever 1 hour, or every 4 hours.

If you're concerned about getting enough flowers to sustain your bee hive(s). You can get a good amount from beaver dams. Ankies and therizinos are also 5 star gatherers of rare flowers, although brontos can also gather large amounts due to their massive AOE attacks.

To harvest honey, you simply access the hive's inventory, like a storage box. However, you get the "BEES" status effect, gradually removing a chunk of your health and slowing your movement (although "drone bees" do not come out to attack you). Wearing ghillie armour while harvesting negates the movement debuff, and applying bug repellant, or wearing full hazmat armour negate all negative effects.

headsathe1941.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ARK/comments/mr9qn8/bee_honey_is_sweet_however_taming_a_queen_bee_can/

Share this post