Bee Hive (biome)

Bee Hives are hollow pockets of Hive block in the Underground Jungle, with a honey pool at the bottom and usually one Larva stuck to a wall or ceiling. Breaking the Larva summons Queen Bee on the spot. It has one hit point in every sense that matters: a stray arrow, the tip of a whip, a mistimed pickaxe swing, a platform placed on the wrong tile, or a hornet's own projectile will set the fight off.

Small and medium worlds carry six to eight hives, large ones eleven to sixteen. You will walk into several long before you are ready for the boss, which is the entire problem.

The floor of a hive is honey. Standing in it gives the regeneration buff, which is pleasant, and slows you to something close to wading, which is not. Trigger Queen Bee while you are stuck in it and she gets several free passes before you can climb out. A Larva you could not see under the surface plus a player who cannot move is how most accidental Queen Bee fights go.

Assume every hive has a hidden Larva until proven otherwise. A large hive that appears to have only one, or any hive that appears to have none, is a reason to be more careful rather than less. Do not fire into the honey. Do not pour water on it either: it converts into Honey Blocks as the two meet, and blocks forming around a partly submerged Larva break it exactly the same way a sword would.

Hornets and Moss Hornets accumulate inside hives in numbers, and their stingers poison. If you are in there for more than a minute, which you will be the moment you start building, they become the main threat rather than the Larva. A Bezoar shuts the poison off, Hornet Banners cut down what is left, and a quick ranged weapon like the Musket or The Undertaker clears them without spraying shots around the room.

Avoid anything that pierces or travels through blocks while you are inside. Whips, the Vilethorn and bouncing projectiles all reach past what you aimed at, and what they reach is usually a Larva. If you have to use one, wall the Larva in first.

This one catches experienced players. Chlorophyte and Orichalcum armor both attack on their own. The Chlorophyte Mask throws leaf crystals at whatever is nearby, and the Orichalcum Helmet rains petals on your target. Either will happily break a Larva you never saw, in a hive you never entered, off the edge of your screen. Wearing one of those sets through the Underground Jungle means occasionally being ambushed by a boss with no warning at all.

A big hive is most of an arena already, and one is worth converting. Clear the interior walls, run platforms across the open space, and you have a flat enclosed room that suits the Queen Bee fight and, much later, Plantera, which is fought in the same layer and needs exactly this kind of cleared horizontal room.

Platforms also solve the honey. Lay them over the pool before you go anywhere near a Larva so that a bad moment does not end with you swimming. Be careful where each one lands, because a platform dropped on a Larva breaks it.

You do not have to keep finding hives. The Abeemination is built from hive materials and jungle odds and ends, and it summons Queen Bee anywhere, which turns farming her for the Bee Keeper, Hive Pack and the rest into a matter of stocking up instead of exploring. Mine the hive blocks out when you leave, and take a stack of Bottled Honey with you while you are down there.