Could we reconsider the expense of beeswax?

[JazzyGames]

While going on the BeeQueen grind has been fun and engaging, this event with all of its opportunities to wax and carve pumpkins of different sizes has left me wondering why an item such as beeswax, whose only function outside of crafting is in creating decorations, should be so costly. The cost of waxing a single pumpkin is one honeycomb, you get one forever carved pumpkin for destroying a non-renewable beehive. This feels unnecessarily expensive of a cost for the simple benefit of having your decorations not spoil.

I don’t remember where I heard this idea from but it is the best solution I’ve ever heard to this issue: make honeycomb refine into multiple beeswax. Five seems like a fair number to me. You could easily eliminate beeswax from the two recipes that currently require it: wax paper could use 1 honeycomb and embalming spritz could use 3 honeycomb. So you’d basically be making a choice of whether you want to use your honeycomb for decorations or for crafting, and the refinement option minimizes the potential for duping shenanigans with large amounts of beeswax.

I would very much love to wax more pumpkins but the cooldown of BeeQueen and the availability of honeycomb in the world quickly becomes a bottleneck, and I think that it would be great to consider this potential change. Let me know what you think!

[Pe Dabliu]

Yes, yes, 100 times yes!

[CrimsonStrider]

5 seems a lot. Maybe 2 is enough?

Maybe make it so a full bee box occasionally also yields comb with the honey? It would further encourage people to have bee boxes. 

[cybers2001]

15 minutes ago, CrimsonStrider said:

5 seems a lot. Maybe 2 is enough?

Maybe make it so a full bee box occasionally also yields comb with the honey? It would further encourage people to have bee boxes. 

Define "a lot." What part of decorating with large crops and pumpkins can become too OP with cheaper wax?

The only balance issue, really, is for crafting wax paper, but they could always compensate for it by making 1 wax paper cost 5 bees wax.

[lowercase skye]

4 hours ago, JazzyGames said:

I would very much love to wax more pumpkins but the cooldown of BeeQueen and the availability of honeycomb in the world quickly becomes a bottleneck

You can add Klaus to that rotation for 4 extra per year by deconstructing the bundles! Gotta turn off Winter's Feast, though.

1 hour ago, cybers2001 said:

What part of decorating with large crops and pumpkins can become too OP with cheaper wax?

It's not a matter of power, it's just that decor has to fit caaaarefully between "free" and "too expensive." Decor in DST feels best whenever it's just enough effort to feel satisfying to accomplish: if it's too cheap, you don't feel like you did anything, and if it's too expensive then it feels too tedious for something non-functional. For example if 1 honeycomb made 400 beeswax, it wouldn't be overpowered or mess with the game on a balance level at all, but it WOULD eliminate the task of gathering wax entirely, making waxed plants feel so effortless to create that it wouldn't even be satisfying to fill a base with them.

If I had to choose a number I'd go with 4. That's 24 waxed plants per Bee Queen kill, which is more than enough for a simple build, while still requiring repeat kills if you want to cover a larger area with them.

[HowlVoid]

44 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

You can add Klaus to that rotation for 4 extra per year by deconstructing the bundles! Gotta turn off Winter's Feast, though.

It's not a matter of power, it's just that decor has to fit caaaarefully between "free" and "too expensive." Decor in DST feels best whenever it's just enough effort to feel satisfying to accomplish: if it's too cheap, you don't feel like you did anything, and if it's too expensive then it feels too tedious for something non-functional. For example if 1 honeycomb made 400 beeswax, it wouldn't be overpowered or mess with the game on a balance level at all, but it WOULD eliminate the task of gathering wax entirely, making waxed plants feel so effortless to create that it wouldn't even be satisfying to fill a base with them.

If I had to choose a number I'd go with 4. That's 24 waxed plants per Bee Queen kill, which is more than enough for a simple build, while still requiring repeat kills if you want to cover a larger area with them.

This is honestly the most important take on this thread. One of the cool things about decorating in a survival game is the flex that you did it because you can, you go from scrapping by to flourishing. People with thousands of hours in the game forget that new players see all the abundance of resources and time and go "woah! I wanna get to that level!".

It would honestly feel so cheap if it was super easy.

[Frosty_Mentos]

Anything to reduce the honeycomb grind is good thing imo. Though from what I remember from a Klei stream they 'want' these sort of particular resources to be 'very valuable and rare' commodity, as in translating that statement 'we want you to play and grind more to get more'.

Besides, I really wish we could have more beeswax related products to justify this change. Candles when, Klei?

[Frosty_Mentos]

Actually, scented candles to use for sanity regain would be kinda nice.

[Lovens]

They should just allow wax spray to work on carved pumpkins and harvested giant (and small crops). That would solve the issue to me. I agree that 1 beeswax per waxed crop is way too expensive. 

Also the current solution I use to speed up wax farming in my world is crafting and deconstructing wax sprays in addition to killing BQ. I know it's not ideal but something you can also do for now until it gets changed. 

Edited November 1, 2025 by Lovens

[gaymime]

8 hours ago, CrimsonStrider said:

5 seems a lot. Maybe 2 is enough?

Maybe make it so a full bee box occasionally also yields comb with the honey? It would further encourage people to have bee boxes. 

i would like if a maxed out bee box could have a percentage chance of a comb. i would definitely make boxes and leave wild hives alone if that were the case. right now the only difference between the two is skins which is not really worth the labour in solo play

Edited November 1, 2025 by gaymime

[yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

Maybe there should be a real beeswax spray, crafted by beeswax and mosquito only, to wax giant vegetables instead of directly using beeswax to do this. Embalming Spritz would become its upgrade, crafted by it and pure horror.

Edited November 1, 2025 by yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Jakepeng99]

4 hours ago, Lovens said:

They should just allow wax spray to work on carved pumpkins and harvested giant (and small crops). That would solve the issue to me. I agree that 1 beeswax per waxed crop is way too expensive. 

Also the current solution I use to speed up wax farming in my world is crafting and deconstructing wax sprays in addition to killing BQ. I know it's not ideal but something you can also do for now until it gets changed. 

Why should everything be locked to riffs?

[Mr.Oshiro]

I agree. As the demand for beeswax increases, we need more sources of beeswax.
I have an idea that has been going on for a long time, which is to ensure that the Killer Bee Plain must be generated in the world. This biome is challenging enough, and if we have the ability to conquer it, we can get almost endless beehives. It's really enjoyable to obtain resources through battles.
Perhaps we can move the BeeQueen there and form a true bee kingdom.

   

[Maxil20]

2 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Why should everything be locked to riffs?

This is actually the only item from the plinth you can make without rifts. The shadowcraft plinth only takes dreadstone, nightmare fuel, and pure horror, and the spritz itself only needs pure horror as the “rare” ingredient. Its not the easiest to do as you must kill nightmare werepig for the horror, but it’s certainly doable.

Edited November 1, 2025 by Maxil20

[RubLog6]

Don't decon bundles from Klaus lol. Decon the bee queen crown instead.

[BrixGoBrrr]

*yes* big agree on all fronts ... what do y'all think of leaving a bee box undisturbed for a long stretch of time to generate more honeycomb, and it must be harvested soon after it's available?
something like 1 honeycomb per bee box, per year, if left undisturbed all Winter and the first full day of Spring, and it melts in early Summer if the bee box on the surface, melts mid Summer if in the caves? 
multiple beeswax per honeycomb also sounds great 

[Bumber64]

Wouldn't the bee boxes melt, then?

What if you could use a razor on the box to get some wax honeycomb, but the bees produce no honey while they restore it?

Edited November 4, 2025 by Bumber64

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, Bumber64 said:

Wouldn't the bee boxes melt, then?

What if you could use a razor on the box to get some wax, but the bees produce no honey while they restore it?

i know you are (probably) joking but i am struggling so hard reading that

https://carolinahoneybees.com/how-to-harvest-honey/#The_Process_of_Collecting_Honey

[Jakepeng99]

On 11/1/2025 at 5:55 PM, Maxil20 said:

This is actually the only item from the plinth you can make without rifts. The shadowcraft plinth only takes dreadstone, nightmare fuel, and pure horror, and the spritz itself only needs pure horror as the “rare” ingredient. Its not the easiest to do as you must kill nightmare werepig for the horror, but it’s certainly doable.

Oh cool, but still just making beeswax become 5 wax is much better

[Hungry French]

On 01.11.2025 at 05:01, JazzyGames said:

Хотя прохождение «Королевы пчёл» было весёлым и увлекательным, это событие со всеми его возможностями по обработке и вырезанию тыкв разных размеров заставило меня задуматься, почему такой предмет, как пчелиный воск, единственная функция которого за пределами крафта — создание украшений, стоит так дорого. Стоимость обработки одной тыквы воском — одна сота. Вы получаете одну тыкву с вырезанной на ней надписью навсегда, уничтожив при этом невозобновляемый улей. Это неоправданно высокая цена за то, что ваши украшения не испортятся.

Я не помню, где я услышал эту идею, но это лучшее решение проблемы, которое я когда-либо слышал: превратите соты в несколько видов пчелиного воска. На мой взгляд, пять — это оптимальное количество. Вы можете легко исключить пчелиный воск из двух рецептов, в которых он сейчас используется: для вощёной бумаги можно использовать 1 соту, а для бальзамирующего спрея — 3 соты. Таким образом, вам, по сути, предстоит сделать выбор: использовать ли соты для украшения или для изготовления предметов, а опция «Улучшение» сводит к минимуму вероятность мошенничества с большим количеством пчелиного воска.

Я бы с удовольствием покрыл воском больше тыкв, но время восстановления BeeQueen и доступность сот в мире быстро становятся узким местом, и я думаю, что было бы здорово рассмотреть возможность этого изменения. Дайте мне знать, что вы об этом думаете!

You haven't seen how it's extracted in mods where it's impossible to destroy beehives 💀

I personally think' that bee hives should be indestructible. How to extract wax? Add a small chance of honeycomb loss from bees. + you can add getting 4 waxes for 1 honeycomb.

On 01.11.2025 at 07:59, cybers2001 said:

Что значит «много»? Какая часть декора с использованием крупных овощей и тыкв может стать слишком вычурной при использовании более дешёвого воска?

Единственная проблема с балансом — это крафт вощёной бумаги, но её всегда можно компенсировать, сделав так, чтобы 1 лист вощёной бумаги стоил 5 пчелиных сот.

Bubble Wrap should ideally be destroyed after opening. Well, like... It has an animation of how the paper tears...

[Pe Dabliu]

Well, irl when harvesting bee boxes, we get honey and wax. Easiest way to deal with this problem is to either add wax as a product along with the honey, or giving us an alternative - harvest by hand to get honey, or use the razor to get wax - That way it's one or the other, and still keeps things working like it used to for the people who don't care about decorations 

[lovegrooove]

On 11/1/2025 at 3:01 AM, JazzyGames said:

While going on the BeeQueen grind has been fun and engaging, this event with all of its opportunities to wax and carve pumpkins of different sizes has left me wondering why an item such as beeswax, whose only function outside of crafting is in creating decorations, should be so costly. The cost of waxing a single pumpkin is one honeycomb, you get one forever carved pumpkin for destroying a non-renewable beehive. This feels unnecessarily expensive of a cost for the simple benefit of having your decorations not spoil.

I don’t remember where I heard this idea from but it is the best solution I’ve ever heard to this issue: make honeycomb refine into multiple beeswax. Five seems like a fair number to me. You could easily eliminate beeswax from the two recipes that currently require it: wax paper could use 1 honeycomb and embalming spritz could use 3 honeycomb. So you’d basically be making a choice of whether you want to use your honeycomb for decorations or for crafting, and the refinement option minimizes the potential for duping shenanigans with large amounts of beeswax.

I would very much love to wax more pumpkins but the cooldown of BeeQueen and the availability of honeycomb in the world quickly becomes a bottleneck, and I think that it would be great to consider this potential change. Let me know what you think!

That's an amazing idea. I love using giant crops instead of walls as base decorations, and your proposed changes would make things a lot less tedious. ❤️

[BrixGoBrrr]

oo the razor is a good call, and no honey while the bees are replenishing the wax sounds fair to me 

[KvltBear]

Yeah it's crazy how the wax spray doesn't work. It's the obvious solution in my opinion. 1 honeycomb for 5 wax would be fine as well, I guess the wax paper recipe could be adjusted to make it still 1 for 1. I'm not particularly concerned about it, I get most of my wax paper from Krampus anyway.

It's a bummer as I really want to cover my base in carved pumpkins but the cost is so freaking high.

Edited November 4, 2025 by KvltBear

[Bumber64]

On 11/2/2025 at 6:52 PM, gaymime said:

i know you are (probably) joking but i am struggling so hard reading that

https://carolinahoneybees.com/how-to-harvest-honey/#The_Process_of_Collecting_Honey

Probably because I meant to say honeycomb (which certainly shouldn't melt in summer). We'd assume there aren't enough giant bees to gather pollen during rebuilding.

Getting wax randomly when harvesting is another option. That does melt, so disposing of it isn't a big deal.