Realistic Bees
by Serilum
Players who want smaller, more numerous bees can use Realistic Bees, which shrinks bees to a quarter of their vanilla size and increases how many spawn and how many fit in a hive.
What it does
Realistic Bees changes how bees behave and how they look, leaving the set of items and blocks in the game as it is. Bees are scaled to 25 percent of their normal size by default, and the beeSizeModifier setting can change that, with the vanilla size restored by setting it to a value that disables the feature. Smaller baby bees sometimes take suffocation damage because of their AI, and the preventBeeSuffocationDamage option stops that damage so they do not disappear.
Each natural bee spawn is followed by extra bees, controlled by extraBeeSpawnsPerBee, which defaults to 9. Hives are also changed so that up to 20 bees can enter, up from Minecraft's default of 3, since the smaller bees take less room. The mod depends on Collective, which must be installed alongside it on every loader. It runs on client and server, so the server and every player need it, and it is published for Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt across 29 release versions, 1.16.5 – 26.3, under All rights reserved; the source code is public but the mod is not open source.
Key features
Scaled bee size
Bees are drawn and sized at a fraction of their vanilla size, with the scale set in the config file.
Larger spawn groups
Every natural bee spawn is followed by a configurable number of extra bees, so bees appear in bigger groups.
Bigger hives
Hive capacity rises from 3 bees to a configurable count, 20 by default, so more bees can live in one hive.
Suffocation fix
An option prevents suffocation damage to the smaller bees, which stops them vanishing in some situations.
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
26.x5 of 5 versions with builds
1.21.x12 of 12 versions with builds
1.20.x7 of 7 versions with builds
1.19.x3 of 3 versions with builds
1.18.x1 of 1 version with builds
1.16.x1 of 1 version with builds
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Requirements
Dependencies declared by the latest file for each loader.
Required 1
Use cases
Denser bee farms
Bigger hives and spawn groups let a bee area support more bees before it looks empty.
How it compares
Debarbed Bees changes bee behaviour too, with files for 1.21.9 – 26.2 under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 license, and it is a server required mod, so clients may leave it out. Bee Buddies runs on client and server across 1.16.5 – 1.21.1 under a custom license. MoreBeeInfo is a client-side only mod, open source under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later, for 1.15 – 1.21.1.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realistic Bees | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.16.5 – 26.3 | Client and server | 2026-10-02 |
| Debarbed Bees | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.21.9 – 26.2 | Server required, client optional | 2026-08-01 |
| Bee Buddies | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.16.5 – 1.21.1 | Client and server | 2025-08-16 |
| MoreBeeInfo | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.15 – 1.21.1 | Client-side only | 2026-05-17 |
Questions
Does Realistic Bees need another mod?
Do players need Realistic Bees to join a server?
Which version range does the mod support?
In the catalog
Realistic Bees is one of 11,058 Mobs mods on ModsFinder, and one of 5,189 Mobs mods for Fabric. 8,071 mods support Minecraft 26.3.
More from Serilum
Similar mods
What the author says
Realistic Bees is a mod which attempts to make bee behaviour more realistic without adding new items or objects to the game. Bees are 25% of their normal size. To make bees a little less uncommon, the mod also adds a config value (by default 4) which defines the extra amount of bees that spawn after each natural bee…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/realistic-bees
- Owner
- Serilum
- Published
- 2022-09-01
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-10-02
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15