How to get female Combee in Platinum faster?

Question

I'm playing Platinum, I know slathering a bark with honey is one way to attract rare Pokemon.
Can I get tips on how to catch a Female Combee faster? I'm looking forward in getting a Vespiquen.

Answer 1

It is based on luck

Female Combees are quite rare. There is a 87.5% chance for the Comber to be male and 12.5% chance for it to be female. Slather as many trees as you can in honey, then check back to all of them to see if the Comber is female. You might have to try this multiple times, as (as far as I know) you cannot determine the gender of wild Pokemon and female Combees are relatively rare.

Answer 2

It seems funny that all three answers have missed something which would give you a 2/3 chance to get a female Combee - use a male Pokemon with Cute Charm. As per Bulbapedia:

From Pokémon Emerald onwards, if a Pokémon with Cute Charm is in the first place in the party (even if fainted), there is a 66.7% chance that the game will force an encountered Pokémon to be the opposite gender to the Pokémon with Cute Charm if it can be that gender. This does not affect a swarming Pokémon species (except in Generation IV) or Pokémon found in Hidden Grottos.

So, get any male Pokemon with Cute Charm (Lopunny will be the easiest, just catch a Buneary with Run Away), slather a tree with honey, and then reset until you get a female Combee. As NoJoy_Maloy's answer already said, the gender is determined when you encounter it. So voila, you've just turned a 12.5% chance to get a female Combee to a 66.7% chance. Just make sure that you have the male Pokemon with Cute Charm at the first slot of your party when interacting with the tree

Bulba's page for Cute Charm
Lopunny's DB page

Comments

Evolving a Lopunny takes a while. I think it's easier to use Cleffa or Clefairy for this.

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Cleffa/Clefairy are only 25% make themselves, so there's no point to put in work finding a male Cleffa just to get a Combee

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How does finding a male Cleffa take longer than evolving a Lopunny?

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Buneary can be found pretty early, and with the early Soothe Bell, you just need to run around until you have a Lopunny, while Cleffa comes pretty late and so, if you actually want Vespiquen for a playthrough, you'll prefer Lopunny

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Buneary is in Eterna Forest, which is after Mars and before Gardenia. has 0 base friendship, and it goes up by 1 once every 512 steps, on average. Soothe bell has no effect because floor(1 * 1.5) = 1. So you'll need 112640 steps (on average) to evolve a Lopunny, and running this distance will take over 4 hours according to a Gamefaqs thread. If you want to use Vespiquen in a playthrough, it's much faster to just save in front of the tree and soft reset until the Combee is female.

Answer 3

I know this is answered but I have more to add.
If Honey is slathered on a tree, and is also the last tree that was slathered, there's a 90% chance that it will pick a Pokémon from the same group, so if you already found a Combee on that tree, you will have a larger chance (but not guaranteed) chance of getting another one. Also, the more times a tree shakes, the higher the chance for rare Pokémon. If you have a Ditto (After you get the National Pokédex, you can catch one from the Trophy Garden as a daily Pokémon Mr Backlot talks about, but it's rare. The Ditto are levels 16-18), you can put one with a Combee and keep hatching eggs to guarantee that you get a Combee.

Source: http://www.dragonflycave.com/honeytrees.aspx

              http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Honey
              http://pokemondb.net/location/sinnoh-trophy-garden

Answer 4

While the type of Pokemon is determined when the honey is applied, the details of that Pokemon are not. i.e. IVs, Nature, Level, and gender. Save before interacting with a shaking tree. If it's not a Combee, kill/capture it and move on. If it's a male Combee, close the game and reopen it and re-interact with the tree, you'll get a different Combee. Repeat until the Combee is female (this may take a while since 87.5% of Combee are male, as noted by LeafeonLol).