Palia Beehives: Where Honey Actually Comes From
There is no beehive or bee house you can craft and place in Palia. Honey comes from two places: Bumbles, the bee-like animals you raise on your ranch, and wild honeycombs hanging in trees. This guide covers both, plus the bee-themed decor that sometimes gets mistaken for a hive.
Written for patch 0.207. Things can change after a game update, so check anything important in Palia.
Is there a beehive in Palia?
No. The wiki's list of crafters (the placeable stations that make things on your plot) has no hive, apiary, or honey maker. The fishing crafters are the Worm Farm and Glow Worm Farm, gardening has Soil, the Seed Collector and the Preserves Jar, and nothing on the list turns flowers into honey.
If you want a steady honey supply, the Bumble on your ranch is the closest thing to a hive. If you only need a jar or two, wild honeycombs work fine.
Where and when: getting a Bumble
Ranching opens up after you finish the quest Like a Bird. Once you have your glider, Delaila visits your plot and hands you the Barn Bell recipe. Ringing the Barn Bell takes you to your ranch.
Bumbles become available at Ranching level 9. After that you can buy more of them from the Ranching Guild Store for 1,200 gold each.
How Bumbles make honey
A Bumble starts producing honey once it grows to the Young Adult stage. Babies and Venerated animals do not produce anything, so a brand new baby Bumble will not give you honey right away.
Every ranch animal has a production bar on its Animal Card. The bar fills a little each in-game day, and when it reaches full you can collect the item. Keeping a Bumble happy speeds production up, and letting its Focus (how well fed it is) drop slows it down.
Bumbles are described as low-maintenance compared with other ranch animals: they make honey infrequently and have a low Focus limit, but they cope fine if you leave them alone for a while.
Friends can help. Visitors can pet, feed and collect from your animals, and anything they collect goes straight into your inventory. You do need to be on the ranch yourself for a visitor to gather produce.
- Keep an eye on the species productivity limit on the Animal Card. Going over it lowers how much each Bumble of that species produces.
- Traits change things. Some Bumbles have Beepressed, a common trait that makes them gain about 10% less happiness.
Wild honeycombs
You can also forage honey. Honeycombs hang in trees in Bahari Bay and in the Elderwood. They are up high, so you have to bring them down first: shoot them with an arrow, hit them with a smoke bomb, or chop down the tree they are on.
Elderwood honeycombs can be infected. To collect an infected one you need an Elderwood Potion active or the Bag of Illusion. Infected honey also drops some Infected Essence when you gather it.
Be quick. In Bahari Bay a honeycomb disappears for everyone 5 minutes after the first player gathers it. In the Elderwood they vanish 30 seconds after gathering, like other uncommon forageables.
What you get
Honey is an Uncommon item worth 23 gold. You can eat it raw or cook with it.
| Source | What you get | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bumble (ranch animal) | Honey | Available at Ranching 9. Extra Bumbles cost 1,200 gold. Produces from Young Adult age on. |
| Honeycomb in Bahari Bay trees | Honey | Knock it down with an arrow, smoke bomb, or by chopping the tree. |
| Honeycomb in Elderwood trees | Honey (plus Infected Essence if infected) | Infected combs need an Elderwood Potion or the Bag of Illusion. |
What to do with honey
- Turn in 1 Honey for the Honey Do daily quest. Honey from a Bumble counts, so you do not have to hunt for a honeycomb.
- Craft the Honeybunch Hivelight, a ceiling chandelier that uses 2 Honey along with Palium Bars, Silk and a Glass Bulb.
- Feed it to a Worm Farm: one Honey makes 4 Worms and 11 QualityUp Fertilizer. In a Glow Worm Farm it makes 1 Glow Worm and 11 QualityUp Fertilizer.
Bee decor is not a hive
Patch 0.201 added more pieces to the Honeybunch decor set, including the Honeybunch Hivelight, Honeybunch Planter and Honeybunch Bee Plaque. These are furniture. They look the part, but they do not make honey.
Tips
- If you have a Honey Do daily and no Bumble yet, head to Bahari Bay with your bow and look up into the trees.
- Shoot a honeycomb down instead of chopping the tree if you want to keep the tree for later.
- Raise a baby Bumble early. It will not make honey until it reaches Young Adult, so the sooner it starts growing the better.
- Feed and pet your Bumbles before you log off. Happy, well fed animals fill their production bar faster.
- Infected Elderwood combs are worth grabbing while an Elderwood Potion is running, since you also pick up Infected Essence.