  We report on the properties of 11 early B stars observed with gratings on
board XMM-Newton and Chandra, thereby doubling the number of B stars analysed
at high resolution. The spectra typically appear soft, with temperatures of
0.2--0.6 keV, and moderately bright (log[L_{X}/L_{BOL}]~ -7) with lower values
for later type stars. In line with previous studies, we also find an absence of
circumstellar absorption, negligible line broadening, no line shift, and
formation radii in the range 2 - 7 R*. From the X-ray brightnesses, we derived
the hot mass-loss rate for each of our targets and compared these values to
predictions or values derived in the optical domain: in some cases, the hot
fraction of the wind can be non-negligible. The derived X-ray abundances were
compared to values obtained from the optical data, with a fair agreement found
between them. Finally, half of the sample presents temporal variations, either
in the long-term, short-term, or both. In particular, HD44743 is found to be
the second example of an X-ray pulsator, and we detect a flare-like activity in
the binary HD79351, which also displays a high-energy tail and one of the
brightest X-ray emissions in the sample.
