I started a new playthrough and just got annoyed AGAIN by the fact that you cant put ingots into compacting drawers. So you have two choices:
a) store nuggets and craft ingots/blocks if you need them
b) store ingots/blocks and go looking for nuggets if you need them
And I just realized that you really made it more complex than it really is.
Get rid of that reward that gives you 10 ingots of each type.
First of all, that reward is pointless. You cant really do much with it, maybe craft a template, or get easier to some of the forestry machines, but it would be easier to just give a free template somewhere in a quest. The forestry machines are easy enough once you get the metal bees.
Once you have done that you can just add the recipe ingot to nugget again.
Instead of asking for 16 nuggets you could also just ask for 2 ingots, but that doesnt really change much then. In both cased people cant just use the stuff from the ingot reward.
Another solution would be to ask for 12 ingots, so people hand in the 10 and make 2 more from nuggets, but of course that would get quite tedious if they used the ingots for something else and would again make the reward kinda pointless.
What are your plans for Bee Happy 3? Is this still on the table ?