Ok, im gonna start my hives just to verify all you said, cause to my knowledge, the wax crafting pot can hold 255 wax at a time and has 50 uses so thats quite a lot, also, the tools have 500 uses, thats 40 uses per hive x 24 so about 960, so 2 tools are needed. That might be over price but again i have yet to start my hives, i will coment at a later time with my own result (not taking into consideration de price of kegs since i make them myself without buying reagents) My bigest concern is that i saw a vendor in the new luna market selling honey at 100k for 1000 jars, making hives a risky investment if that person bought hundreds of thousand jars at 3 gp on the vendor during that exploit situation we had, making the players who harvest them through working and tending to hives impossible to compete price wise. I have also seen some of the vendor stone rewards sell for less then 100k, again, making the price of honey drop dramaticaly!
I guess testing on my part and time will tell us if they are a viable income over time.
My two cents,
Thorgal Pain