Minecraft wiki entry for Shulker_Box, associated text: Shulker boxes can be mined with any tool or by hand, but using a pickaxe is the most effective. Shulker boxes drop themselves when mined. Unlike other containers, the contents of shulker boxes are stored within the dropped item, and not dropped separately. When instantly mined in Creative mode, shulker boxes drop as an item if there are items stored within, unless /gamerule doTileDrops is set to "false".