That's awful. I wouldn't ever want to play there.[DOUBLEPOST=1361218666][/DOUBLEPOST]
Bees take up space, as do farms. You cannot easily stack many of them. Except in some cases where you can, but in those cases it looks terrible and anyone with even an ounce of aesthetic sense shies away.
I have every bee breed except dyes and the new thaumic ones, I know how much space they take. I also know that you can slap cave and nocturnal on any production bee and stack them in alvearies like magic blocks that produce stuff out of thin air. And I see no reason a factory shouldn't be as aesthetic as a factory. Lots of grey blocks, straight lines, and exposed piping. I'm pretty sure my carrot farms have never seen a ray of sunlight, I know its been a couple weeks since they've seen me around them.
My base, which I consider has everything needed, and several things not needed, is currently occupying a 2x3 block area (I had mapped out a specific 3x3, but never used that much) from 50 to 80 y-blocks. Oh yeah, there's a prototype nuke plant at the bedrock too, but it won't behave and explode like I expected.
My next base, regardless of its a rebuild of this one or a new gen of a world will be spread out to lower block-update issues, but even then I suspect I could build everything desired within 8 spot loaders.