Bee hives are the only part of Graveyard Keeper’s beekeeping setup you fully control. Once built, each one hands you honey every day for half the energy a wild hive costs, plus the occasional beeswax and live bee. The catch is the entry fee: you need a technology, a repaired workbench, and a pile of bees that the game is stingy about handing out.
Quick answer: Research Bee domestication, repair the Apiary workbench with 4 Wooden plank, 4 Simple iron parts and 2 Clean paper, then build each hive for 4 Flitch, 6 Nails and 10 Bees.
Bee hive requirements and costs
Everything below is fixed. Bee hives can only be placed at the Apiary, they occupy a 3×3 footprint, and they cannot be rotated, so plan the layout around the seven fixed spots the repaired workbench unlocks.
| Requirement | Cost |
|---|---|
| Technology | Bee domestication (Farming and Nature) |
| Workbench repair | 4 Wooden plank, 4 Simple iron parts, 2 Clean paper |
| Repair energy | 10 |
| Hive (PC, Switch, PS4, Xbox One) | 4 Flitch, 6 Nails, 10 Bees |
| Hive (Mobile) | 4 Flitch, 6 Nails, 20 Bees |
| Build spots | 7 at the Apiary |
The workbench cannot be repaired before Bee domestication is researched, so the technology always comes first. Mobile players pay double on bees per hive; every other version settled on 10.
Apiary location: where hives can be placed
The Apiary, also called the bee garden, sits on the hill northwest of your home and north of the graveyard. From the Sweet home yard, head west along the dirt road, then turn north through the canyon pass. Nothing else on the map accepts a hive, so there is no decision to make about placement beyond the seven slots.
Four broken hives are lying around, three at the Apiary and one behind the Beekeeper. Clearing each returns up to 1 Flitch and 3 Metal scrap, which covers a chunk of your first hive’s timber.
How to get bees for the hive recipe
Bees are the bottleneck. There are exactly two ways to get them, and only one of them is reliable.
Wild hives
Wild hives hang in trees across the map. Two sit near the Apiary itself, two more are close to the Beekeeper, and a cluster of three sits in the forest by the river near the refugee camp. Harvesting one costs double the energy of a domestic hive and chips a little health off you from stings.
Two things limit this route. Live bees only drop once the insects technology is unlocked, and even then they appear rarely. Wild hives do respawn after roughly two and a half minutes, so cycling the six hives north of your home works, but expect a lot of walking for 10 bees.
Buying from the Beekeeper
Buying is the faster path. The Beekeeper lives in the western part of the village, near the wheat farm. Teleport to the Dead Horse tavern and walk north past it to reach him.
Open Trade and he stocks 20 Bees per day alongside honey and wax, at a base price of 20 copper each. That is two hives’ worth of bees in a single visit on PC and console, and the stock refreshes daily, so a few trips fill all seven slots without touching a wild hive.
Building a bee hive at the Apiary
What each bee hive produces per harvest
A domestic hive can be harvested once per day for 10 energy. The Beekeeper perk doubles the honey yield but leaves the bee and beeswax rolls alone.
| Item | Base yield | With Beekeeper perk |
|---|---|---|
| Honey | 2 | 4 |
| Bee | 0–2 | 0–2 |
| Beeswax | 0–1 | 0–1 |
Because hives can return bees themselves, the first one or two you build eventually pay for the rest. Fill all seven slots and the Apiary turns into a daily honey and beeswax run that feeds cooking, alchemy and candle production without another copper spent at the Beekeeper.
