If you’ve spent any time exploring Enshrouded’s vibrant, mist-covered open world, you’ve probably stumbled across a recipe that calls for honey and realized you have zero clue where to find it consistently. It’s not just a sweet treat; honey is a core ingredient for healing potions, food buffs that boost your stamina and resistance to the Shroud, and even some higher-tier building recipes. Figuring out how to farm honey in Enshrouded early on will save you hours of wandering around searching for wild hives mid-quest, and make your survival runs far less stressful. I’ve tested every possible setup across 80+ hours of playtime, so I’m breaking down exactly what works, what doesn’t, and how to get a steady supply without extra effort.
Prerequisites to Start Farming Honey in Enshrouded
You don’t get access to bee hives right out of the gate, and you’ll need to progress a bit through the early game to unlock the required recipes and tools. First, you need to rescue the Farmer NPC from her vault in the Revelwood area. She’s the only NPC that sells the Bee Hive crafting recipe, so you can’t build your own farm without her. If you haven’t found her vault yet, it’s marked on your map once you clear the first three starter story quests, so you won’t miss it if you follow the main path.
Next, you’ll need to gather a small stack of materials to craft each hive: 30 Wood Planks, 10 Clay, 2 Iron Nails, and 1 Wild Bee Swarm. Clay is easy to find near river banks in the Springlands biome, and Iron Nails are crafted from Iron Bars you get from smelting iron ore found in cave systems. Don’t worry if you haven’t found a wild bee swarm yet, I’ll cover that in the next section. You also need to have a clear, flat outdoor space for your hives, because they can’t be placed inside buildings, under roofs, or in areas covered by the Shroud.
Where to Find Wild Bee Swarms for Your Farm
Wild bee swarms are the only non-craftable component for your hives, so you’ll need to track at least one down to get your farm up and running. They spawn near wild bee hives, which are usually attached to the sides of large oak trees in the Revelwood and Springlands biomes. You can spot them easily from a distance, because they have a distinct golden comb hanging off the tree bark, and you’ll hear a quiet buzzing sound when you get close.
You can’t harvest a swarm from a wild hive by hitting it, that will just make the bees attack you and drop a small amount of honey, no swarm. Instead, you need to craft a Bee Smoker first using 1 Iron Bar, 5 Wood, and 1 Cloth. When you use the smoker near a wild hive, the bees will calm down, and you can collect the swarm safely without taking damage. I made the mistake of punching a wild hive my first playthrough, and I ended up running from angry bees for ten minutes straight, so trust me on this one. You only need one swarm to start, because once your farm is established, your hives will occasionally spawn new swarms you can collect to expand your farm for free.
Optimal Honey Farm Layout for Maximum Yield
A lot of players place their hives randomly and wonder why they’re only getting one jar of honey every hour. The layout of your farm directly impacts how fast your hives produce honey, so it’s worth taking a minute to set it up correctly. I’ve tested 7 different layout configurations, and this one gives the highest consistent yield by far. This Enshrouded honey farm setup works for both solo and multiplayer play, so you don’t have to tweak it if you’re playing with friends.
- Place each hive at least 4 blocks apart from other hives. If they’re too close, their production radius overlaps and they produce honey 30% slower.
- Surround each hive with at least 3 flowering plants within a 5-block radius. Daisies, lavender, and wild clover all work equally well, you don’t need rare flowers to get faster production.
- Make sure no part of the hive is covered by shade from trees or buildings. Full, direct sunlight all day will bump your production speed by an extra 20%.
- Avoid placing hives near Shroud zones, even if the area you’re building in is clear. Proximity to the Shroud will slow production and sometimes cause bees to abandon the hive entirely.
If you follow this layout, each hive will produce 3 to 4 jars of honey every in-game day, which is more than enough for most players’ needs. I currently have 6 hives set up this way, and I have a chest full of honey I don’t even use, just from passive production. Each hive can hold up to 10 jars of honey before it stops producing, so check in every 2 to 3 in-game days to empty them if you don’t want to waste production time. You don’t have to do any extra work to keep the bees happy, just leave them in their optimal spot and they’ll keep producing indefinitely.
Common Honey Farming Mistakes to Avoid
Even if you follow the layout guide, you might run into issues if you make these common errors that most new players miss. First, don’t try to place hives on elevated platforms more than 2 blocks off the ground. For some reason, the game doesn’t register the flowers below the platform as being in the production radius, so you’ll get way slower yields. I learned this the hard way when I built a raised farm platform and got almost no honey for three in-game days before I figured out the issue.
Second, don’t use fertilizer on the flowers around your hives. I thought this would help speed up production at first, but it actually does nothing for honey output, and just wastes fertilizer you could use on crop farms for wheat or vegetables. Third, don’t attack bees around your farm, even by accident. If you hit a bee from your own hive, the whole swarm will turn hostile, and they’ll stop producing honey for 10 in-game minutes until they calm down. If you do accidentally aggro them, just run far away from the farm for a few minutes, and they’ll go back to normal when you return. If you’re playing on a multiplayer server, make sure other players know not to mess with your hives, because friendly fire near bees will also trigger the hostile state.
At the end of the day, setting up a honey farm is one of the most useful quality of life upgrades you can make early in your Enshrouded playthrough. You don’t need a ton of rare materials or end-game unlocks to get it running, and the passive supply of honey will make every part of your game easier, from fighting tough bosses to exploring deep Shroud zones. Now that you know how to farm honey in Enshrouded, you can set up your own farm in less than 20 minutes and never run out of this essential resource again. I’d recommend starting with 2 hives first, then expanding as you get more swarms, so you don’t waste materials on extra hives you don’t need right away.