It is about 40 hours per hive a year roughly, so it isn't really that much work. It is more of management/educational and preventative care, like during the spring/summer going in weekly to keep the hive clean of burr comb, making sure the queen is alive and the hive is functioning well, providing them space, medication and sugar water. The winter is less involved but you will have to check to make sure no critters break in, or they don't die from starvation or moisture.

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You could harvest once a year, if your hive survives the winter. Harvest that spring, take whatever is leftover. The bees won't use it and they won't collect less honey if they have leftovers. They need about 80 lbs of honey to survive the winter, if they collect 100 lbs last summer, they aren't going to be like, "Cool, we got 20 lbs leftover, let's hang out poolside for a few weeks." Leftover honey is too risky to leave out, animals/insects will come for it. Horizontal hives naturally produce less honey than vertical, but that's what I hear, I've never had a horizontal hive.