Is Honey a Symbol?

So what I've been wondering is that if the book is all about a beehive being a microcosm of the real world, then shouldn't the most important part of a beehive have some sort of significance in the real world? Honey is the whole point of taking care of bees and having a beehive, so it seems like it must be a symbol, but of what? Earlier on in the book Lily talked about how much they ate honey with the sisters and the effect it was having on her, so I'm just wondering if there's more to that than just being the literal benefits of honey.