One piece of sheet metal buys either this hive or a craft of high external stone walls, and that is the decision behind the recipe. Sheet metal cannot be crafted, whatever the unfolded calculator shows at Level 3: it comes from crates, road loot and the recycler, a few at a time. A group still walling in its compound should spend the sheets there first.
The research is the cheapest part of a home farm, and the wood is a minute's work. What the calculator cannot show is the beehive nucleus: no bench makes one, and a hive without it produces nothing. Hold the sheet back until a nucleus is actually in your box.
Tip
Spare hives are a poor sheet bank. The ordinary recycler returns the sheet only half the time, so craft one hive per nucleus, not a row of them in advance.
