Minecraft wiki entry for Honey_farming, associated text: Dispensers can be used to harvest honey bottles and honeycomb from a hive using a redstone signal. The output of the dispenser must point toward the beehive, and the dispenser must contain glass bottles to collect honey bottles, or shears to collect honeycomb. Collecting honey bottles places the item directly into the dispenser, whereas collecting honeycomb causes the items to drop onto the floor. You can prevent filled honey bottles from getting placed back in the dispenser by using an item filter below the dispenser. The benefit to using an item filter is that you don't need to fill each slot of the dispenser. Dispensers deplete the durability of the shears with every use. Note that harvesting from the hives using dispensers doesn't anger the bees, so placing campfires underneath them is not necessary if you harvest this way.