What's the point of the apiary?

[Rabbits Love Cactus]

Better food should give advantages over stuff like a raw egg or shamwich. When I say better I don’t mean make them more filling. We should get an energy rush, or maybe temporarily jump higher or run faster. Similar to what mega crush does but make it unique for each high quality food type.

 

[meganoth]

I used to think food value was important. I'd always make the best food possible. Now I realize it doesn't matter. Obviously I won't just keep making the lowest food items, but mid-level food like stews provide enough food to keep you going for a long time. In my current game, I haven't even bothered with stews and just keep making steak and potatoes and they are enough. If you eat once per day or twice per day, it really doesn't change anything. You can carry 10 in a stack, so unless you're going to be gone from your base for a really long time, you're not going to run out. Whether you want to deal with a farm or not is more of the issue, I think. Personally, I don't mind it. It takes practically no time to harvest and plant crops since I don't make a 100 plot farm like some people. Mine is usually 10 or less and works fine for two people.

As far as being a waste, unless you have enough honey to keep making food or drink for everyone in your party without constantly being short, then you're wasting honey, imo. If you make enough apiaries to keep overstocked on honey enough to do so, then that's obviously not a problem. I haven't played long enough with apiaries to know how many you need to handle different sized groups yet. But to me, if you're eating or drinking stuff made with honey when you're not infected, it's a waste. If you're overloaded with honey, then it obviously doesn't matter if you waste it. I'll still probably never make any honey food or drink because I see no value in it regardless of the amount of honey I have.

As I said, in my solo game it looks like maybe even only 1 but surely 2 apiaries will suffice to keep me fed. Once I have that, why should I make lesser food that has more ingredients I would need to farm? You can't tell me that half the farm plots to service isn't an advantage however slight.

Maybe the difference between food that gives you 100 or 140 food is marginal, but if someone runs around with food that has a value of 60 or less then the need to eat twice also means double the animation you have to endure (and maybe double the stink time?). In fact there are only advantages however small to high value food when it is cheap to make and no disadvantages.

On one hand you tell madmole that you don't really need honey from the apiaries in endgame because of your better armor (which is correct). Quote: "And by then, I find enough honey even without an apiary"
On the other hand you still place a value on honey as if it was a very restricted and scarce. But if you find enough honey without an apiary anyway, honey from the apiary would just be surplus, right? But why would you think surplus needs to be saved instead of wasted?

Do you still stop at tree stumps while driving through the country? I really hate that as I have to stop, hit the treestump multiple times, go back to the bike which likely moved on a little and accelerate again. And I have to do that 5 times on average for a single honey. Have an apiary for that and never need to stop.