The First Apiary

A Chance to Heal...

Mouse approached the massive, metal doors. She knocked once, the door swinging open soon after. She expected a wide smile. In the months since they arrived back home, they hadn't talked much. They cast each other a smile, but something was off. Rhey noticed how quick it faded, how eager he was to avert his eyes.
“Hey Rhey,” he said, his voice low, and timid. “Thanks for coming.”
“Matt? Is everything okay?” she replied.
“Yes and no. Come on in.”
She stepped through and immediately noticed a rise in temperature. She felt a drop of water fall on her cheek. She brushed it away, looked up, and marveled at the rows of flowers above her, each row stacked on top of the other from floor to ceiling. “I’ve never been in here before.”
Oracle nodded, and laughed. “We have reasons for that. We don’t let many people in these days. There's a complicated history.”
Mouse sighed and shook her head. “So this is what you do with your time off? More work?”
“” That’s actually why I asked you to come.”
“What’s wrong?” Mouse asked.
“Stacy’s pregnant.”
Mouse’s smiled from ear to ear, her eyes wide. “Congragulations. Why is that bad? You seem so solemn.”
“I’m thinking of going homebound. I’m leaving the crew. I gotta be here for them. I don’t think I could leave them for months at a time.”
“Oh.” Mouse was silent for a moment. She wasn’t angry. She was sad. She hated the idea of losing someone on her crew when they only just started out. “That’s understandable. Don’t worry, it’s not like I'll be mad.”
“Thanks. It wasn’t the plan, but that’s how things go.” Mouse scoffed. “Don't I know it. Take care of yourself. Homebound isn’t easy from what I hear.”
“I will, don’t you worry. You guys be safe out there.”

The Valentine Apiary saved humanity. We were a dying race, stranded on a distant rock, further from home than we'd ever been before. In its luscious gardens, we began a long and arduous journey, the whole of humanity tiptoeing on the path to healing. Our numbers were even fewer than. Did we struggle? No. We persevered.
It was a time of famine. Our livestock couldn't adapt to their new home, our crops were failing, we struggled to eat for the better part of a decade. We were so close to the edge, inches from extinction. Many among the early settlers feared the end. They knew it was coming. We weren't fond of living, not after what happened, but death isn't exactly what one would call a pleasant experience. Trust me, I know.
The Valentines were a group of nobodies who arrived at Safeharbor aboard a rusted heap of steel, the leaking bulkheads sealed with glue and prayers. The latter would serve them ill when all was said and done. Many things could be pointed to and called "the great triumph, or the first step on the ladder of progress." The Valentine apiary is the only one truly deserving of such praise.

The First apiary

The Valentines weren't welcome on the Arks. They left of their own volition, their fate taken firmly into their own hands. The years of hibernation were fairly uneventful, so I've been told. They woke up to the light of a blue sun, and a red planet that never knew how to accept them.
They had little in the way of cargo. They had supplies, tools, and personal items brought from Earth. However, nestled in the corner of their cargo hold were three white wooden boxes. The boxes were placed in glass crates, a means of keeping the creatures inside dormant and safe.
The Valentines were beekeepers. It's all they knew. When they realized Safeharbor was no place for bees, and just how close we were to the end, they took action. They established the first of Autumn's apiaries, and used their experience to force nature's hand, climate be damned.

Competition

Human nature followed us to Safeharbor, nipping at our heels. When one has and another has not, it's only a matter of time before the have-nots seek change. The Valentines were heroes. They were loved. They solved a problem the greatest minds of earth could not, and bruised more than a few egos.
It was peaceful at first, or perhaps a better term would be passive aggressive. The number of hives grew, and many sought to barter in exchange for the excess. For a select few, it was a genuine interest. Some truly had a passion for the profession, and the Valentines helped in every way they could.
Others were not so genuine. When bartering failed, they threatened. When threats failed, they resorted to violence, theft, slander, and cruelty. As the number of apiaries grew, the animosity grew as well. New advancements that could beat the competition were revealed every day, break-ins were reported every night, and without a proper form of law enforcement, they often fell on deaf ears.

The Dangers of Faith

The Valentines persevered, as did we all, but they were people of faith in a world that sought to break free from such shackles. Those who shared in their passion stopped coming, fearing persecution and retaliation from their peers. The whole of Autumn shunned them in the end. They were harassed, refused service, and eventually exiled like all the other people of faith.
I honestly doubt this particular case had much to do with religion. While the time marked a shift toward a preferable, secular society, this was about our most precious resource. They packed up what they could and left Autumn, seeking refuge among others who felt the sting of rejection from those they sought to help. I wonder if any are still alive.
Such a sad end to a tale about healing. We were meant to stand united, not squabble over perceived unfairness. Needless to say, reform was just around the corner, but the long term effects are still present. It's the worst form of prejudice, silent and hungry. Despite our progress and efforts, our journey for healing is far from over.

Advancements

First order of business was climate. The Valentines managed to find a perfectly suitable building only to tear it apart and slap the pieces back together in a new form. They laid the ductwork for ventilation, and planted the first seeds in their vertical gardens.
The flowers grew. Roses, lavender, tulips, and other species deemed useless by those who built the arks. They set up a site for citizens to deposit organic waste. Earthworms were brought out of their hibernation, eager to forge the miracle of compost, which only made these gardens flourish more.
They built sunlamps, lights that mimic the spectrum of the earth's sun, and in a few short months, the first bees of Autumn took flight. By the end of the year, honey was becoming the most valuable commodity on the planet.

Breakdown of the logistics and economics as it concerns the apiaries of Autumn.

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.