Queen Bee

Type	Boss
Environment	Bee Hive Jungle Underground Jungle
AI Type	Queen Bee AI
Damage	30/54/81 (melee); 22 / 44 (stinger)
Max Life	3400/4760/6069
Defense	8 / 8-20 (depending on health)
KB Resist	100%
Immune to
Debuff	Poisoned
Debuff tooltip	Slowly losing life
Chance	100%
Coins	51250
Hurt
Killed

"The matriarch of jungle hives..."

The Queen Bee is a pre-Hardmode boss. She is summoned by breaking the Larva inside Bee Hives of the Underground Jungle, or by using an Abeemination anywhere within the Jungle. She is immune to the Confused debuff, and can inflict the Poisoned debuff.

While Queen Bee is alive, music Boss 5 () / Boss 4 () will play.

Attacks

Queen Bee has three distinct attack patterns:

She will level herself horizontally with the player and fly back and forth three times in an attempt to ram the player.
She will spawn Bees while hovering (which will include larger ones in Expert mode), which attack the player.
Similar to Hornets, the Queen Bee will rapidly fire poisonous stingers at the player. During this pattern, she will alternate between hovering above the player, and positioning herself to swoop in at the player from above.

In Expert mode, the speed of these attacks increases as the Queen Bee takes damage.

Sting Operation • “Defeat the Queen Bee, the matriarch of the jungle hives.”

Defeat the Queen Bee for the first time.

Category:

Slayer

The Larva can be broken by any damaging weapon, similar to a Pot, so many actions such as the Orichalcum armor's set bonus or a Star Cloak can break the Larva, causing the Queen Bee to be unintentionally spawned.
- This is especially common if there are remaining larva within the Jungle late into the game, when it is possible to hit things anywhere on the screen, even behind solid blocks.
Once the Queen Bee is defeated, the Witch Doctor NPC will spawn if there is a vacant house.
Bees do not drop Souls of Light, Souls of Night, Biome Keys, or Biome Key Molds.
In Multiplayer, Queen Bee appears not to despawn upon the death of players, and will follow them all the way back to the spawn.
Occasionally, a Bee Hive will be large enough to possess 2 Larvae. If a player is using a bouncing weapon such as the Water Bolt, they need to be wary of the second Larva, lest they be targeted by the newly summoned, second Queen Bee.

For more elaborate strategies on defeating Queen Bee, including weapon and arena recommendations, see Guide:Queen Bee strategies.

The Honey naturally found in Bee Hives can be used to craft Bottled Honey or provide passive health regeneration mid-fight. However, standing in Honey will slow down the player.
The Bees do little damage, but can easily become an annoyance as they can push the player around. If the player does not have a Cobalt Shield or Obsidian Shield to avoid knockback, any grappling hook can be used to anchor the player to blocks.
The Queen Bee can be a viable source of money, dropping <span class="coin" title="Expression error: Unexpected < operator." data-sort-value="Expression error: Unexpected * operator.">Expression error: Unexpected < operator.Expression error: Unexpected < operator.Expression error: Unexpected < operator.Expression error: Unexpected < operator. upon death and being comparably simple to summon.

The Queen Bee has the largest number of drops of any pre-Hardmode boss in the game at 16. Furthermore, she has the second-most drops of any boss, surpassed only by Plantera (a boss that is also spawned in the Underground Jungle), who has 17.
Strangely, although being able to inflict the Poisoned debuff, Queen Bee is not immune to it herself.
Although rare, it is possible to obtain the Yelets from the Queen Bee if she is defeated after one of the Mechanical Bosses has been killed.
The 1.2 concept art of the Queen Bee looked vastly different than the actual sprite that was implemented, and more resembled a Hornet compared to the final sprite.
Queen Bee is the only boss that cannot be fought an infinite number of times per world. This is due to her summons being non-renewable. There is a limited number of larva in each world, and hive blocks, a required material in the Abeemination, are also non-renewable.

Desktop 1.2.3: Fixed exploit where Queen Bee could get stuck in tiles and not move.