Bee Workforce

Build your base with the help of bees.

Bee Workforce is a mod for Minecraft Forge 1.20.1 that turns vanilla bees into Construction Bees. They can help remove and place blocks while building structures.

Create a Blueprint from an existing building, choose where to build it, and provide the required materials. Construction Bees will carry materials from a special chest and work on the structure automatically.

No additional mods such as Forestry are required. Vanilla Bee Nests and Beehives can be used as homes for Construction Bees.

Main Features

Turn vanilla bees into Construction Bees with Builder Honey
Scan existing buildings and save them as Blueprints
Rotate Blueprints based on the player's facing direction before building
Let several Construction Bees work on the same project
Supply building materials through Bee Builder Chests
Remove blocks that are in the way of planned blocks
Handle doors and beds as single building jobs
Return removed items to Bee Builder Chests
Catch Construction Bees with a Bee Catching Net
Carry caught bees without losing their remaining work count or other saved information

How to Play

Find some bees and breed them to grow your colony.
Use Builder Honey on a bee to obtain it as a Construction Bee item.
Insert Blank Blueprint Paper into a Blueprint Creator Block to obtain Printed Blueprint Paper.
Insert the Printed Blueprint Paper into a Bee Construction Block and confirm the construction plan.
Put the required materials into a Bee Builder Chest.
Relax and enjoy watching the bees build.

Note: A Construction Bee can be returned to item form with a Bee Catching Net.

Construction Bee Work Range

Construction Bees work within an area centered on their home Bee Nest or Beehive.

33 × 33 × 33

Bee Builder Chests, Bee Construction Blocks, and the blocks being worked on must be inside this range.

Bee Catching Net

Use a Bee Catching Net on a Construction Bee to return it to item form.

Any player can catch a Construction Bee, regardless of the bee's owner information.

A caught bee keeps information such as its remaining work count, abilities, and any item it is carrying.

Construction Bee Lifespan

Construction Bees do not have a time-based lifespan, but each bee can perform only a limited number of jobs.

A new Construction Bee can complete 100 jobs.

One job is used when the bee does either of the following:

Removes one block
Places one block

When its remaining work count reaches zero, the Construction Bee disappears.

When a Home Is Broken

When a Construction Bee's home Bee Nest or Beehive is broken, the bee stops working, returns near its previous home position, and enters a death-waiting state.

Before it dies, you can rescue the bee with a Bee Catching Net or by shift-right-clicking it with an empty hand.

Right before death, if a nearby Bee Nest or Beehive with the same owner has room, the bee can move its home there and survive.

If no valid rescue home is found within about 30 seconds, the Construction Bee dies. Before moving or removing a hive, catch its Construction Bees first.

What Blueprints Do Not Save

Blueprints save the blocks in a building and their placement directions.

They do not save the following:

Air
Fluids such as water and lava
Items inside chests
Items inside furnaces or other containers
Internal data stored by block entities

Because air is not saved, placing a build inside a mountain will not automatically dig out the rooms inside it.

Construction Bees remove a block only when a different block is occupying a position where the Blueprint plans to place one.

Blocks that a normal player cannot break, such as bedrock, are skipped rather than removed.

Configurable Settings

The following settings can be changed for each world:

Maximum size of each Blueprint dimension
- Default: 16
- Allowed range: 8–64
Maximum number of blocks stored in one Blueprint
- Default: 4,096
- Air and fluids are not counted
Maximum serialized size of one Blueprint
- Default: 262,144 bytes
- Absolute maximum: 1,048,576 bytes
Whether hostile mobs can target Construction Bees
- Default: enabled

The configuration file is beeworkforce-server.toml in the world's serverconfig folder.

Larger Blueprints require more processing and saved data. On multiplayer servers, increasing the limits gradually is recommended. Reload the world after changing the settings.

Additional Notes

Construction Bees can take damage
If a Construction Bee dies while carrying an item, the item is dropped at its position
Construction Bees moving through blocks is intended behavior
Falling blocks such as sand and gravel may fall after being placed
Regular chests are not used as building-material storage
A build reservation cannot be confirmed if it overlaps another active reservation

Requirements

Minecraft 1.20.1
Minecraft Forge
No dependency on Forestry or other content mods

Before Installing

Bee Workforce allows Construction Bees to remove and place blocks directly in the world.

Before using the mod in an important world for the first time, please make a backup.