Yeah, building up on stock takes time, time, time and time :-) And a good (read: commercial) portfolio. That was the biggest mistake that I made with stock, I focused mainly on landscapes and such. It used to sell well, like +15yrs ago (+1000€ even for one pic!). Lately I've been focusing more on people content (like the series you have here), and that does work better these days ;-)
But if I would start with a new portfolio right now, my main focus would indeed be more on Hive then on stock...