I think part of the 'magic' of the Honey Bee is that it is a bit of an odd duck, theres not really anyhthing else like it... - and while you COULD add more distortion and change the EQ response and compression etc, you would have a different pedal (and yes lets leave the circuit design and pedal building to Bjorn )
the Honey Bee did go thru a couple changes at the beginning.... in fact it was born of Bjorn wanting something 'special' for the 2002 Stockholm show and me wanting a Guitar version of the BlueBerry Bass OD - the 3BOD has a similar dynamic distortion that is found in Tube Bass amps , (you can control the distortion with your finger pressure when set correctly) and it sounds really nice on guitar too but its usually too dark for real guitar use ----
The first couple HBs were a bit too dark and needed to break up a bit easier (weaker guitar pickups) , so BJ took some of the bass out revealing the treble and the dynamic distortion better.......
I guess it could have been called the BlueBerry OD but there already was a BBOD at the time
I had been working on wood finishes and suggested a Cherry Sunburst FlameTop box as eye candy for the show --- and BJ mentioned he preferred Honey Burst LesPaul finishes , and that evolved to the Honey B ee show name and paintjob and 2 where made and that could have easily been the end of it ~~~~ but slowly a few more were made and ~~~~~
well who knows what the next research pedal to reach full regular production will be - the HB, EGDM,RRB,BPB,SBEQ and LGW were all one offs that 'got out of hand'
in fact BJFE was Bjorn Juhl Amplifier(Forstarker in swedish) Electronics service business, the first pedals were made to demonstrate the effect of different distortions on his amps at a guitar show ---- the pedal building thing kind of got out of hand too