Guide:Queen Bee strategies

This is a Guide page. This means the page will walk you through a specific task, strategy, or enemy/boss fight. This guide was last updated for version 2.0.2.003.

Queen Bee

Map icon

Statistics

Type	Boss
Environment	Jungle
Damage	Contact: 30 / 54 / 81 / 99 / 135 Stinger: 22 / 44 / 64 / 72 / 96
Max Life	3400 / 4760 / 5172 / 6069 / 7281
Defense	14
DR	5%
KB Resist	100%
Inflicts debuff	Poisoned 33.3% / 100% chance
Debuff duration	10 seconds (stinger) / 2-20 seconds (stinger) 2-8 seconds (contact)
Debuff tooltip	Slowly losing life
Immune to

Resistances

Cold	Vulnerable
Water	-
Sickness	Resistant
Electricity	-
Heat	Vulnerable

Drops

Coins	15

• Item (Quantity)Rate
• Bee Wax (16-26)
  100%
• Stinger (5-10 / 8-12 )
  100%
• One of the following 3 items will always be dropped
• Bee Keeper
  33.33%
• Bee's Knees
  33.33%
• Bee Gun
  33.33%
• Hive Pack
  100%
• Beenade (10-30)
  75% / 100%
• Hardened Honeycomb (30-50 / 50-75 )
  100%
• Honey Comb
  33%
• The Bee
  10%
• Only one of the following 4 items can drop at a time.
  2 will drop from the Expert Mode Treasure Bag.
• Hive Wand
  33% / 100%
• Bee Hat
  11%
• Bee Shirt
  11%
• Bee Pants
  11%
• Nectar
  6.7%
• Honeyed Goggles
  5%
• Bottled Honey (5-15)
  100%
• Queen Bee Mask
  14.29%
• Queen Bee Trophy
  10%
• Thank You
  1%
• Queen Bee (Lore)(Always on first kill)
  100%
• Treasure Bag(Queen Bee)
  100%
• Sparkling Honey(In Master or Revengeance Mode only)
  25% / 25%
• Queen Bee Relic(In Master or Revengeance Mode only)
  100% / 100%

Sounds

Hurt

Killed

Summon bees

Stinger

Charge

Queen Bee is a pre-Hardmode boss fought in the Jungle between Deerclops and Skeletron. Fighting her is not required for game progression, but her defeat will reward the player with money and useful items for the upcoming fight, as her bee themed gear can be highly effective on Skeletron.

This guide will mention items exclusive to Expert and Revengeance Mode with no special formatting and will follow the intended progression.

Terrain Preparation

• Fighting the Queen Bee in the Underground Jungle will make the fight much easier, as she enrages on the surface, which means that her charges become insanely fast and she shoots stingers at a very rapid rate, along with dealing more damage. It is not recommended to fight her in the beehive area.
• If you have any Hornet Banners, place them around your arena so that you will have an easier time dealing with Queen Bee's hornet spawns.
  • This can also be useful while constructing your arena, especially if you use a natural Bee Hive, as these types of enemies will be much more common.
• Multiple levels of long platforms in the Underground Jungle make dealing with both of Queen Bee's primary attacks much easier.
• Clear out a large area in the Underground Jungle to ease mobility in this fight but take care to ensure that the whole arena is still considered to be Jungle and not Underground/Caverns, as these areas will enrage Queen Bee and cause her to charge you with heavily increased speed and shoot stingers much faster.
  • The Giant Bee Hive or Vernal Pass can be particularly useful as natural arenas for this fight if the player wishes to avoid needing to clear out an area themself.
    • The Giant Hive especially due to its natural Larva generation that can be used to start the fight.

Gearing Up

For a Normal and Expert mode guide to Queen Bee, see Queen Bee strategies on the vanilla wiki.

Armor

• Aerospec armor is an all-around solid choice for each class, providing great increases to both damage and movement speed.
• Molten armor is the best choice for Melee players looking to maximize their damage and is especially potent with true melee weapons like the Volcano.
• Jungle armor is a solid option for this fight for mages, but a combination of a Diamond Robe or Mystic Robe alongside a Wizard Hat or Magic Hat will provide better damage output at the cost of some defense.
• Obsidian armor is a great choice for Summoners due to its minion slots and whip bonuses.
• Sulphurous armor is viable for Rogue players at this point and has slightly more damage than Aerospec armor at the cost of mobility.

Accessories

• The Bundle of Balloons and Terraspark Boots provide powerful movement and jump boosts to help dodge the Queen Bee's attacks.
  • The Skyline Wings are another good option for vertical mobility.
• The Shield of Cthulhu can help the player dash between stingers fired by the Queen Bee and potentially bounce off of Queen Bee's charges with its ram.
• A Bezoar can be used to negate Queen Bee's Poisoned debuff.
• The Frog Leg and its upgrades provides a jump speed boost that makes it easier for the player to jump over Queen Bee's charges.
  • The Aero Stone is an equally viable option if the player chooses to make use of Wings, though the Frog Leg is still just as good on Wings as well.
• The Stress Pills can be incredibly helpful for this fight due to the sheer efficacy of Adrenaline against Queen Bee's scaling defense as her health drops, as well as the additional movement bonuses.
• The Brain of Confusion can be used for its dodge and Cerebral Mindtrick buff for extra critical strike chance.
• The Worm Scarf's damage reduction is as viable as ever on Queen Bee.
• The Gladiator's Locket will provide solid healing from Queen Bee's spawns.
• Melee players can make use of the Bloody Worm Tooth and Feral Claws for extra damage and melee speed.
• Magic players can use the Mana Flower if they are not using Mana Regeneration Potions.
• Summoners should absolutely take advantage of the Voltaic Jelly and Spirit Glyph if possible.
• Rogue players have an abundance of accessories they can use, but the Bloodstained Glove or Filthy Glove the player should've just obtained from the Perforators or Hive Mind respectively, in particular should be used.

Weapons & Equipment

Melee

• The Broken Biome Blade with the Arid Grandeur attunement is a risky option but does very high damage against Queen Bee.
• The Air Spinner is the best yoyo available, and its feathers work well against the Queen Bee.
• The Wind Blade is another powerful option.
• The Bladecrest Oathsword pierces, allowing it to deal with Queen Bee and her summons.

Ranged

• The Aquashard Shotgun is a very powerful option for this boss.
• The Magna Cannon continues to be a very powerful weapon against Queen Bee.
• The Fungicide can be good to deal with the bees that are spawned by the Queen Bee.
• The Galeforce can both provide good damage on the Queen Bee and easily kill her minions.
• The Taser is good to attack the Queen Bee directly.
• The Dragoon Drizzlefish can help deal with the Queen Bee's summons due to its piercing.

Mage

• The Tradewinds tome has piercing and ricocheting abilities that can be useful during this fight.
• The Pulse Pistol is very strong in this part of the game and can chain to hit the bees she spawns.
• Both the Water Bolt and the Flare Bolt are very useful during this fight due to their high damage output and bouncing ability.
• The Demon Scythe is a highly effective weapon against both the boss and her summons due to its piercing and high damage output, although it can be difficult to aim at times.

Summoner

• For summoners, the best weapon is the Brittle Star Staff, but the Vile Feeder or Scab Ripper can both also be utilized.
  • The Deathstare Rod and Cinder Blossom Staff can also be used to focus on the Queen Bee's minions.

Rogue

• The Sand Dollar's stealth strike is still extremely powerful against Queen Bee.
• Infernal Krises, Feather Knives, Rot Balls and Tooth Balls are all extremely effective due to their fast-firing rate.
• The Turbulance can be used to great effect due to its many homing attacks.
• Throwing a few Sky Stabbers in the path of her charges is a great source of passive damage.
• The Tracking Disk can provide a consistent source of damage to the Queen Bee and can easily take care of her minions with the lasers it fires.

Miscellaneous

• The Aestheticus can be useful during the fight for inflicting debuffs.
• The Slimy Saddle can help the player avoid Queen Bee's dashes with its increased jump height, and natural bounce off of enemies, in case the player undershoots the jump.
• Any Hook can allow the player to move out of the way of Queen Bee's dashes, especially if they have an arena with multiple layers. The best hooks at this stage are the Diamond Hook and Ivy Whip.

Notable Buffs

• The Well Fed buff and its upgrades provide useful all-around stat boosts.
• Rage and Wrath Potions are excellent ways to improve the player's overall damage.
• Endurance, Ironskin and Regeneration Potions all provide extremely useful buffs to improve the player's survivability.
• Swiftness Potions are a good way to avoid the boss' attacks.
• Melee players can use Ale to improve their offensive capabilities.
• Mage players should use Magic Power and Mana Regeneration Potions to massively boost their damage and not have to worry as much with the damage penalty of Mana Sickness.
• Summoning Potions will grant the player one extra minion slot, massively boosting their damage.
• Shadow Potions will give Rogues more overall damage as well as quicker stealth regeneration.

The Fight

When starting the fight, Queen Bee will immediately charge at the player horizontally three times, while becoming level with the player's current elevation. This should be relatively easy to dodge, as using a Hook or double jump onto a higher platform will make the attack completely miss. Afterwards, simply dropping back down should do the same for her dash back. Repeating this for all of her dashing phases should make them trivial. Dashing into her with a Shield of Cthulhu is also possible and gives the player enough iframes to simply sit through her dash, but the timing can be less consistent than simply jumping, so it isn't recommended.

She will then fly above the player, keeping a certain height above them even if they go up towards her. The player should make note not to be near Queen Bee whenever she finishes a dashing phase as to avoid getting hit by her repositioning.

While above the player, Queen Bee will fire stingers which the player should keep an eye out for, as they can sometimes be difficult to see in the Jungle. This attack should still be easy to dodge if the player simply moves in a figure eight shape around their platform. In other words, running in one direction until she either stops or the player reaches the end of the platform, and then weaving through the gap in her stingers and running in the other direction. This can be more difficult to dodge as her HP drops, and if so, the player should widen their platform, as hopefully it can be extended enough that they simply will not have to thread the needle like this.

Queen Bee will periodically stop to summon Bees. This is when the player should make use of any piercing or AoE weapons, as keeping her minions under control is vital. Forgetting to manage the smaller bees can spell catastrophe, as they can easily interfere with the player's movements and cause them to get hit by Queen Bee's own more threatening attacks.

After this she will charge again, and the player can simply repeat the previous strategies, taking note of her increased rate of attack as her health depletes. When Queen Bee drops below 33% health, she will transition to a more desperate form of attack with her charges now having four strung together instead of three, and they will be even faster than before. This makes the Shield of Cthulhu method of dodging more efficient, as the reduced iframes from Calamity's nerfs to the item will be less relevant as she moves more quickly through the player.

Queen Bee has naturally-scaling defense as her health lowers in Expert Mode, so saving charges of Adrenaline and Rage for the latter half of the fight can be incredibly useful to shred through these tankier stages.