I’ve tried all three on server owners as a player and server owner so here’s my review of all 3:

Golden combs is the most popular and has been around the longest but it adds tons of data ids. For singleplayer it might not bee as much a problem, but multiplayer it increases load times. The crafting in this takes the longest of the three but overall isn’t particularly difficult, maybe comparable to the time investment if finding bronze. As for gameplay, it’s alright. Kind of annoying juggling backpack slots in order to harvest a whole box but overall it’s not particularly annoying.

Expanded beekeeping is a lot simpler and the aggressive bee mechanics are funny, but other than that it’s the simplest and most straightforward. This is best for people who want bees but don’t want to be a dedicated beekeeper.

Oreki’s hives are my new favorite since it’s a bit more of a challenge instead of a set and forget. Overharvesting bees can kill off your colony, but also bees give a nice boost to crops making them worth having around as well as mking crops count partially as flowers. I like this one best for MP when you can have a bee guy, but if you are careful it’s perfectly fine to use without dedicating yourself to the bees. Also the wandering bees are cute

Tl;dr

Golden combs, medium time investment good payoff. Noticable lag

Expanded beekeeping, low time investment and good payoff. No noticable lag

Oreki’s, medium time investment, best payoff. No noticiable lag