A few things to know about bees and preventing their losses:
1) bees are max 3 per hive. if you breed more than 3X the number of hives you have, the surplus will fly off in search of new hives. This can be prevented by #5 below.
2) bees don't always remember their way home so expect some loss due to random walkabouts even if you have sufficient hives and flowers for them.
3) bees can accidentally fly horizontally (never vertically) into campfires so never place them on level ground. instead, dig one block down (1x1). simple.
4) I have no experience putting bees near berry bushes but I expect it is the same premise as putting bees near campfires. Try the one block down strategy?
5) glass greenhouses are great for stopping bee loss. just add some kind of a doorway for entry/exit and don't forget the roof! bees can fly very high.
Bonus: if you are using bees for pollinating your crops, put your crops inside the glass greenhouse, place a few flowers down, breed your bees until there are too many for your beehive count, then sit back and watch "pollinated bees with no home" endlessly fly around your crops. Until they enter a beehive, they will drip pollen onto everything. If you don't need the honey, you can remove all hives inside the greenhouse, too.
Extra Bonus: always have 3 or more honeycombs set aside for making new beehives in case of total loss. Then repopulate the wild hive(s) by over-breeding your crafted beehive(s).
Genevieve Logan
A few things to know about bees and preventing their losses:
1) bees are max 3 per hive. if you breed more than 3X the number of hives you have, the surplus will fly off in search of new hives. This can be prevented by #5 below.
2) bees don't always remember their way home so expect some loss due to random walkabouts even if you have sufficient hives and flowers for them.
3) bees can accidentally fly horizontally (never vertically) into campfires so never place them on level ground. instead, dig one block down (1x1). simple.
4) I have no experience putting bees near berry bushes but I expect it is the same premise as putting bees near campfires. Try the one block down strategy?
5) glass greenhouses are great for stopping bee loss. just add some kind of a doorway for entry/exit and don't forget the roof! bees can fly very high.
Bonus: if you are using bees for pollinating your crops, put your crops inside the glass greenhouse, place a few flowers down, breed your bees until there are too many for your beehive count, then sit back and watch "pollinated bees with no home" endlessly fly around your crops. Until they enter a beehive, they will drip pollen onto everything. If you don't need the honey, you can remove all hives inside the greenhouse, too.
Extra Bonus: always have 3 or more honeycombs set aside for making new beehives in case of total loss. Then repopulate the wild hive(s) by over-breeding your crafted beehive(s).