This is some research and other nonsense I did and by no means is it needed to understand the article. It's just some fun junk I did to try and make it as realistic as possible. I'm no expert though, and I still need to cite my sources here. Sadly the process of writing was so much of a frenzy I didn't copy and paste them. I shall fix it soon.
How much honey is needed and how much is consumed each day?
How much people consume depends on a couple of factors. There are some negatives when consuming too much honey, mainly due to how many carbohydrates are present. Honey is most often used as an ingredient, or a sweetener. No one is eating it by the spoonful.
People of Safeharbor tend to need more carbs in a day than we do, roughly around 3k but maybe higher. They are significantly more active and their nutritional needs will be higher. Dietary guidelines recommend that carbohydrates make up 45 to 65 percent of your total daily calories.
In this case, the average person on Safe Harbor would meet recommendations at 1200-1950 calories from carbohydrates. 1 gram of carbohydrates equates to 4 calories which means we want to land in the range of 300-487 grams of carbohydrates per day.
The math
Likely, the total amount of honey one could consume will be hard to pin down. Because of their active lifestyle, and having a diet that is based around carbs, most nutritional information found through research won't really apply.
For us here in real life, the most you could eat without too much in the way of health risks is 50ml, but this would be higher for those on Safeharbor.
Sadly I'm not a professional on this but I can still do the math. While other sources of carbohydrates exist, honey would be the main source, especially during times when these foods are scarce, such as just before a harvest.
- 1 tablespoon (.5oz, 21g, or 14ml) contains 17 carbs on average. One would need 15 times as much a day just to land within our range. This is 15 tablespoons (7.5oz, 315g, or 210ml) minimum.
Verdict
In times of strife where grains and fruits are scarce, it makes sense to sacrifice health for survival. In these times honey makes up almost all of one's carbohydrates, though it's unlikely they would truly need this much.
Daily nutritional values are iffy and heavily situational. For the purpose of the question, we will say the average person consumes up to 7.5oz, 315g, or 210ml of honey a day in the worst case scenario.
On average, daily consumption throughout the year would linger around 3-4oz, 150g, or 105 ml a day.
Size of hives and amount of production.
The average amount of honey produced per year is 60-100 pounds. 60 pounds is actually average in the real world, but in perfect conditions, a large hive could produce several pounds a day. This is very rare, however.
This means a single apiary with 20 hives can produce 1 - 2 tons or 900 - 1814kg of honey in a year. This does not include hobbyists who have a hive of their own, selling their excess harvest.
Note: The reason for the increase in average range from 60 to 100 is because of the climate controlled apiaries. These bees can produce year round, while bees on earth tend to work by season. By using what they call "maintenance seasons," apiaries can influence the behavior of a hive, prompting them to swarm and relocate, settle, and split into smaller hive with different queens. Factoring in harvests of hiveless queens and royal jelly, keepers can easily grow and maintain numbers.
Verdict:
On average. All the apiaries of autumn (of which there are 20) with average sized hives produce somewhere between 20 and 40 tons of honey per year. (18 thousand - 36 thousand kilograms)
The gardens
All that honey requires a significant amount of flowers. Since the bees can't live outside, and neither can their source of nectar and pollen, the apiaries maintain complex and efficient vertical gardens. These gardens stack from floor to ceiling up to 90 feet high. Excluding the central atrium where the bees are stored, the average square footage of garden space is higher than one would think.
- These buildings are 70 feet in width and 100 feet in length for 7000sqft (21X30 meters for 650 square meters).
Each plant is given two feet of clearance to grow, for 45 feet of vertical space. Each apiary has 315,000 square feet of space. (8919.7225 square meters) just for reference here, you could fit a small flower at 3 inches in one square foot of space 45 times over. It is possible to fit millions of flowers in a single apiary. It takes roughly 2 million flowers visited to produce 1 pound of honey. I was actually quite surprised by these numbers.
Verdict
Realistically, a few million flowers is not likely despite being possible. Hundreds of thousands is more likely. This makes walking space, storage, and other variables possible. Maintaining this forest of color is what takes up the majority of a keeper's time. From fertilization, watering, and more, their work is never done.
I'm my VERY unprofessional opinion, I think I may have made a fairly realistic thing here. Would love to hear your thoughts if you somehow made it through that headache inducing nonsense.
Oh my goodness. What a font. Very good. Write more.
Wait what? Which font. I cant pick my favorite, I love them all too much. XD