The Bee is a legendary Amplify Shield made by Hyperion in Borderlands 2. It is obtained randomly from any suitable loot source, but has an increased chance to drop from Hunter Hellquist located in Arid Nexus - Boneyard. In Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, it has an increased chance to drop from Treants in the Forest.

Special Weapon Effects

Float like a butterfly... – No amp drain. High amp damage. Reduced shield capacity. Increased shield recharge rate and recharge delay.

Usage & Description

The Bee, while having low shield capacity and a long recharge delay, gives extraordinary amp damage with zero shield drain per shot. This effectively provides endless amp damage until the user takes damage from an outside source, making normally infeasible synergies extremely potent. Due to this, The Bee is best used with a weapon with a high rate of fire and large magazine size, as more amp damage can be put out in a shorter span of time before one gets damaged. Shotguns less desirable because the amp damage is divided among all pellets and not applied per pellet. However, if the weapon card doesn't explictly mention any extra projectiles the weapon fires (such as on the Unkempt Harold, Sand Hawk and Pimpernel), the amp damage *will* apply to each additional pellet. This gives these weapons a truly insane amount of extra damage, making them some of the most powerful and popular weapons in the game when combined with The Bee shield. The Bee is also extremely effective with weapons that boost crit damage, such as the Lady Fist, as the extra crit damage will apply to the amp damage dealt.

Ultimately, The Bee shield is arguably the best shield in the entire game, though given that it provides paper-thin protection, the player must accept that they will be playing as a glass cannon.

Notes

• Both Hunter Hellquist and Treants have a 10% chance to drop The Bee. While Master Gee and Handsome Sorcerer can also drop it, the chances are much lower, at 1.7% and 0.3% respectively.
• The Bee also affects vehicle turrets, but not saw blades, rockets, or explosive barrels. Damage taken by the vehicle does not count as shield damage on the driver, allowing the Bee to keep functioning even while taking fire.
• The Bee may also spawn with the Grounded, Inflammable, Alkaline, or Blast Proof prefixes, giving the wearer immunity to electrocution, burning, or corrosion status effects, or a reduction of explosive damage by half.
• The Bee always spawns with a Torgue body and cannot spawn with a Dahl/Hyperion battery and capacitor.
• The Bee was rebalanced by Patch 1.2.0. The patch decreased the amount of Amp Damage (by about 10k for a level 50 example), increased Recharge Delay (by 2 more seconds), and reduced Recharge Rate (by 7k). Most significantly, Amp Shields have their Amp damage amount divided among the projectiles from multi-projectile weapons (all weapons with a yellow multiplier in the Damage stat), thus making all Amp shields, including the Bee, less effective on shotguns and other multi-projectile weapons, rather than more so. However, weapons such as the Sand Hawk that have unlisted extra projectiles will still receive full amp damage per shot.
  • The Bee also no longer adds amp damage to Tediore reloads, but still amplifies the damage of the Avenger and Infection Cleaner, specifically, the bullets fired from the Bouncing Betty grenade effect.
  • Additionally, if a shotgun spawns with the extra pellet accessory, the original amp damage is still added to each of the extra projectiles without a reduction.
    

See also: The Bee/Pre-Patch Variant Chart

• When The Bee fully recharges, a distinct buzz sound can be heard. This buzz can also be heard from other characters and Deathtrap if they have the Bee shield equipped. When the character equipped with the Bee shield connects a shot on to an enemy, a sting can be heard as well.
• All characters, to some extent, can use their various skills, Action Skill, Class Mods and to a lesser extent Badass Rank to mitigate the Bee's downsides and maximize the benefits.
  • Krieg makes poor use of the Bee as many of his high-risk high-reward skills either increase recharge delay or inflict self-damage. Krieg can still maximize explosive and overkill damage but must avoid normal core skills.
  • Axton's Preparation and Willing together increase shield capacity and recharge rate while reducing the delay, and his Sabre Turret, especially with Gemini, can viably draw fire from himself to maintain full shield capacity.
  • Maya's Kinetic Reflection can reach 100% with a class mod, protecting her completely from bullet-based attacks. She can also use Thoughtlock to confuse and distract enemies.
  • Gaige can use Buck Up and Blood Soaked Shields to bypass its long recharge delay. Deathtrap does not benefit from Amp Shields via the Sharing is Caring skill, although Gaige can simply switch to The Bee after giving Deathtrap a more beneficial shield such as the Love Thumper.
  • While Gunzerking, the amp damage only applies to right-hand weapon. Salvador can use a Slag weapon in the left to maximize amp damage. However, like Krieg, given his general aggressive playstyle, keeping a fully charged Bee can be difficult to maintain.
  • Zer0's Decepti0n skill can give additional time for shield recharge to occur and Death Mark, F0ll0wthr0ugh and B0re skills maximizes damage.

Trivia

• The shield's flavor text is a reference to the late boxer Muhammad Ali, who described his fighting style as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."
• Like other items whose name starts with an article, prefixes added to The Bee result in grammatically incorrect names. For example, if the shield spawns with a Maliwan capacitor with shock immunity, the resulting name would be "Grounded The Bee" rather than "The Grounded Bee" or simply "Grounded Bee".

Media

v • e Hyperion manufacture in Borderlands 2 Common Amplify Shield • Apparatus • Backburner • Cat • Competition • Crowdsourcing • Development • Face Time • Impact • Killer • Leverage • Policy • Presence • Projectile Convergence • Projectile Diversification • Roboteer • Shot • Singularity Grenade • Sniper Rifle • Specialist • Storm • Synergy • Thinking • Transaction • Transmurdera • Vision • Weisenheimer • Wellness Unique Bane • Commerce • Fibber • Fremington's Edge • Heart Breaker • Lady Fist • Morningstar • Shotgun 1340 E-tech Dart • Hybridfication • Plasma Caster • Slow Hand • Spiker • Splatgun • Yellow Jacket Legendary Bitch • Conference Call • Invader • Legendary Cat • Legendary Killer • Legendary Mechromancer • Legendary Roboteer • Logan's Gun • Longbow • Nasty Surprise • Overcompensator • Quasar • The Bee Seraph Actualizer • Interfacer Pearlescent Butcher Effervescent Retainer

v • e Shields in Borderlands 2 Common Absorb • Adaptive • Amplify • Booster • Kite • Maylay • Nova • Shield • Spike • Turtle Unique Absorb: 1340 Shield • Aequitas Booster: Pot O' Gold Maylay: Love Thumper • Order Nova: Deadly Bloom Other: Cracked Sash • Captain Blade's Manly Man Shield • The Rough Rider Legendary Absorb: The Sham • The Transformer Adaptive: Neogenator Amplify: The Bee Booster: Whisky Tango Foxtrot Maylay: Bigg Thumppr Nova: Black Hole • Flame of the Firehawk Spike: Impaler Turtle: Fabled Tortoise Other: Hide of Terramorphous • The Cradle Seraph Absorb: Antagonist • Sponge Adaptive: Evolution Booster: Big Boom Blaster Maylay: Pun-chee Turtle: Hoplite Other: Blockade Effervescent Easy Mode • Retainer