Cave Spider in Minecraft: Poison, Spawners and XP Farms
Cave spiders come from mineshaft spawners and poison you with each bite on Normal and Hard. How to break or torch the spawner, cure poison, or farm XP.
Cave spiders are the small blue spiders you meet around cobweb-choked spawners in mineshafts. They have less health than a normal spider but poison you on every bite on Normal and Hard difficulty, and they squeeze through gaps a regular spider can’t. Break or torch the spawner and the problem stops.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Health | 12 (6 hearts) |
| Bite | 2 damage (3 on Hard) |
| Poison | 7 s on Normal, 15 s on Hard |
| Spawns | Mineshaft spawners; trial chamber spawners; sulfur caves (26.2+) |
| Drops | 0-2 string, 0-1 spider eye (player kill); 5 XP |
Where cave spiders come from
Most cave spiders come from monster spawners in mineshafts, which always sit in a corridor full of cobwebs. If you’re mining through a mineshaft and the tunnel ahead is thick with webs, there’s a spawner in there. Trial chambers can also pick cave spiders as their “small melee” mob. Since the Chaos Cubed drop (Java 26.2, Bedrock 26.30) they also spawn naturally in the sulfur caves biome, where they replace regular spiders.
Like spiders, they’re neutral in light level 12 or above and hostile in the dark. Once they’ve decided to attack, light doesn’t calm them down.
Why they’re dangerous
The poison is the problem. On Normal it does about 6 damage over 7 seconds; on Hard, about 12 over 15 seconds. That stacks with the bites and with whatever else is in the cave. Poison stops at half a heart and can’t kill you by itself, but a skeleton arrow can finish the job.
Their size makes it worse. They fit through a gap one block wide and half a block tall, slip between two different types of fence, and ignore cobwebs, which slow you to a crawl. Fighting in the webs is fighting on their terms.
Dealing with a spawner
- Clear the webs from a distance with a sword or shears (shears are fastest and drop string).
- Rush the spawner and place torches on and around it. Spawners need darkness for cave spiders, so enough light stops them.
- Either break the spawner with a pickaxe or leave it lit if you plan to farm it.
Carry milk for the poison, and a shield helps since you block the bite and its poison together. A sword with Bane of Arthropods kills them faster and slows them.
Is it worth farming?
A cave spider spawner makes a compact XP farm: enclose it, push the spiders with water into one collection point, and kill them there. Remember they fit through half-block gaps, so seal the kill area with full blocks or glass. You get 5 XP each, plus string and spider eyes for fermented spider eyes. It’s slower than a skeleton or zombie spawner farm, but mineshafts are common.
Armadillos also scare cave spiders away when they aren’t curled up, though that’s more curiosity than strategy.
Common questions
How do you cure cave spider poison?
Drink a bucket of milk. Poison can't kill you on its own, since it stops at half a heart, but anything else hitting you at that point can.
Do cave spiders spawn naturally?
Yes, but only in the sulfur caves biome, added in Java 26.2 and Bedrock 26.30. Everywhere else they come from spawners: the cobweb-filled ones in mineshafts and some trial spawners in trial chambers.
Can cave spiders fit through a one-block gap?
Yes. They fit through gaps one block wide and half a block tall, so a slab-height opening won't stop them.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
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