Agree with others its about what is available, and its not how many hives its how many bees.
I had 6 hives at my home apiary and got a small amount of honey from them at the end of May despite me using 4 of them to draw new 14x12 broods as I wanted to change them over from std national and the other 2 I split making 6.
So at the end of May I had 10 boxes of bees on this site. Plenty of forage available and building up. I then helped a friend out who needed a temporary home for 6 hives for a couple of weeks at the end of May the site totalled 16.
The 4 which moved to 14x12 I then did AS on increasing my box of bees count to 20 during June. Again forage available and building up.
By early July I had added 4 nuc's for introducing my Ged marshall queens and 4 more splits in Nucs from one of my out apiaries where the queens are both productive and well mannered. My friends hives are still there but now only 3 as he united them after queenlessness. So by now 31 boxes on 1 site.
I did some unites and sold a couple of Nuc's and scaled down to 18 of mine and 3 lodgers. Bees holding there own now with poor weather and forage diminishing. Late July.
This week after another 2 colonies sold and some unites at 2 out apiaries and a subsequent shuffle about I have 12 (+ 3 lodgers) boxes at home, 4 big colonies and 8 nuc's / broods building up. Again just enough forage and weather for them to be holding their own right now.
So this apiary was all about bees, nuc's and splits for me which is what I wanted from it, its handy and I can work on the bees everyday if I need to.
My 3 other sites are all about the crop, between 2 to 6 hives, all big and strong and 200lb May harvest and hopefully same again very soon. I have been able to assess which of these sites this year could of supported more and moved them accordingly, also helps me form my plan for next year.
My home apiary is rural, no OSR this year but plenty of trees, hedges, blackberry, beans and the usual bee friendly 'weeds', I also planted about 1/3 of acre of borage which flowered all July.
More bees and not more hives = more honey
Moving bees between sites to maximise whats available = more honey
Moving bees between colonies to maximise the foraging force (unites) = more honey
Oh and good swarm control and weather = more honey
I started this year with a dozen hives / nuc's and will end with a similar number, although I may have a couple more nuc's as spare queen back ups.
Just my 2nd year beekeeper views.
Cheers
Pete D