Bell generates naturally at the meeting points of villages — typically the central plaza around which villager workstations cluster — and acts as the village's coordination centre. The block can also be obtained from raid-trophy drops or, in Bedrock edition, from specific structure loot. There is no standard crafting recipe in vanilla; players who want extras must hunt down naturally-generated copies and recover the block with silk touch or matching pickaxe tier.

Right-clicking the block plays a deep ringing sound that propagates outward several blocks, alerting all villagers within range. During a raid, the alert causes villagers to panic and retreat into nearby houses for safety, sometimes preventing kills that would otherwise occur. The block is also redstone-activatable — a button or pressure plate triggers the same ring without requiring direct interaction. Visually it hangs from a curved iron frame and chimes physically when struck, swinging on the frame for a few seconds after each ring. Builders use it as a centrepiece for medieval town squares and watchtower flag points.