Abelo 12 Frame Poly Hive Review – Is a Polystyrene Beehive Worth It?

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. I've got another UK exclusive video for you today, and that is the review of the brand new Abello 12-frame poly national beehive. So thanks to Damien at Abello sending me the very first poly hive on the UK market for me to review. Nobody else has got this video. Nobody else has got one of these hives. This is the first place to get an in-depth look on the inside of the Poly National Hive. So I do apologize, it's a bit windy, it's a bit rainy here today. I'll do my very best to give you a really good look inside this beehive, show you all of the features, give you a top-to-bottom review, and let you know my thoughts. So as always, we'll start at the top. We'll go for the roof, the crown board, the super, the brood box, the floor, the monitoring tray, We'll talk about top bee space, we'll talk about bottom bee space, we'll talk about compatibility with wooden national kit, and everything else that goes along with our normal polyhive reviews. So let's get on with it then, straight into the review. Now this is a brand new polyhive on the UK market. There is nothing quite like this. So unlike the old Abelo-style boxes that only took 11 frames, this one here takes 12 frames. So you get a little bit extra space in the brood box and in the supers. And the big change is that it's a top bee space hive. So in previous iterations, it's always been bottom bee space. This version here, completely different format. They've gone for a top bee space format. And personally, I love top bee space. It makes managing bees and managing the colonies so much easier because you're not dealing with all of the bees boiling out at the top of the surface. So I do really like a top bee space system. And then the final huge change that we're gonna focus a lot on on this review is they've added a fully plastic rebate. Now the rebated box issue, it is contentious for many people. Some people do like it, some people don't like it, and there are issues with compatibility. But as we discussed in previous other polyhives reviews, there's ways of getting around that, and I'm going to cover that later on in this review. So let's get on with it then, straight away starting with the top and with the roof. So as with all Abello polyhives, it's a really nice weighty solid roof. You can feel that additional density in there. This is 60% more material than the equivalent size roof from, say, a Suyenti or a Maysmore that's 100 grams per liter. And you can really feel that solid, dense structure of the polystyrene. Really nice, really solid. Obviously comes with the standard Abello paint finish, which I do like. Nice color scheme here as well. And it is nice when they come ready painted. Obviously my preference is to get them unpainted, and these do come unpainted as well. You can get a bit of a saving if you go with the unpainted version, but the quality of the finish from Abelo and the colour schemes that they offer are really nice. So I do like the painted versions of these. Then inside you've got space to feed fondant, and we always look at this with polyhive roofs. Is there enough space to feed fondant? How am I going to feed the bees fondant? And in here it's not quite as deep as the, the first generation that they had, but it's absolutely fine. You've probably got 60-65mm of space in order to feed fondant directly on the crown board, and even without the crown board, it all clicks together really nicely. with this rebate system now. So on the roof, all the way around, you've got a poly rebate. It's not plastic like the rest of it here because it doesn't need to be because it's fully protected from the elements, but this clicks directly onto the crown board. Also, what I like is you've got these pop-outs. So as with all the Bello Polyhives, you do get a lot of these pop-outs and they can be really, really useful. I like them because it gives you the ability to do like a vertical split. So if you're doing a demaree late in the season, Or in the middle of the season, or you're doing it for swarm control, or you're doing it to raise additional queens, you can have your normal queen downstairs and then you can raise additional queens upstairs with additional entrances. So it just saves you using additional ekes or anything like that. You've got that ability built into the roof. If you don't want it there, you can just glue those in, sand it down, paint over, and it's like they never existed. But personally, I really like these. I find them useful. You've got 1, 2, 3, 3, 4. So plenty of functionality built into that roof already. You've got your hive strap, that's legacy design, doesn't really offer any additional functionality, but you can get your hive strap nicely aligned, so good to see. And then like all Abello poly hives, you get your bag of gubbins, so you can change out any of the vents anywhere on the boxes for these ventilated ones, and then you get the solid plugs that are already sitting in the front there. You can chop and change them as you need. Personally, I don't often use the ventilated ones that much. I either have the solid poly plug-in or I'll leave it out and use it as an entrance. So they'll go into my collection of other vents. So then we move on to the crown board, and this crown board is very different from previous iterations. And they've taken advice from, from a number of beekeepers, and they've moved away from this 5-hole system. So now all you've got is you've got a central hole in the middle, and then you've got a fondant feeding slot there. So these slots around here work perfectly in conjunction with their plastic Ashforth feeder, This doesn't come as part of the package, it's an additional extra, but it fits in really, really nicely. And then obviously the bees come up through this slot here and they can access the plastic feeder. Now when you're not using the feeder, it comes with plugs so you can plug up both of these holes and you get a solid crown board, which is really nice, keeps the bees nice and snug over winter. That one just plugs in like that. But the beauty of this crown board, if you take out that central vent there, you can put a big slab of fondant on there. Get a whole slab on there if you wanted, but you can easily get 6 or 7 kilos on right in the centre, hopefully where the bees are. Really nice simple design and it works well. So obviously on the top of this crown board now you've got this solid formed plastic rebate, and these are bulletproof. Like, these are absolutely rock solid. You've got the positive rebate on the top and then you've got the negative rebate on the bottom. This poly hive is reinforced in all of the key areas with plastic. It's not going to fall apart anytime soon. This is really, really well built. So then this positive rebate is reflected all the way down until you get to the floor. So everything clicks in place and you get that solid lateral stability, which means that your boxes aren't sliding all over the place. And more importantly for a bellow, you're not getting any water ingress at all. So if you're the person that's bought an old version of an Abello hive and you've had issues with water ingress, this hive completely solves it. There is no possible way that water can get into those joints, up about a 10mm gap and then down and over. This will protect your bees from any water ingress whatsoever. Final thing to say about the crown board is it's a really nice thick solid crown board, like it's about 25-30mm at its thickest point. It's great for insulation for the bees, The reason most people buy poly hives is to get that good insulation for the bees. This crown board really does add to the overall insulation qualities of this hive. So we move on to the super then, and there's a couple of key points that I'm not discussing about the whole of this hive in terms of bee space and the rebates. We'll cover all of those at the end of the video. So the super, as per normal, you've got 2 deep handhelds on opposing sides and then you've got 2 shallow handhelds on opposing sides as well. So you've definitely got ability to hold it in all 4 directions, but it's considerably more comfortable holding it that way round. Now I'm fine with that. They've done that in order to accommodate the 12 frames inside, just to get that footprint so it doesn't get too, too big, which is perfectly acceptable. It's just a little bit easier to hold it the other way round. A little bit shallow there, but perfectly acceptable. You can pick it up, no problem. So you've got your little entrance block at the front there. You can use that before, like I said, for making vertical splits if needs be, or you can just keep that plugged up. There's only one per super and that is all that you need. And again, like we've said, you've got your positive plastic rebate running all the way around the top there, and then you've got your negative plastic rebate running all the way around the bottom there. So what that gives you is the ability to pick boxes up and just shake them around. Like, you can't do that with other poly boxes. You can't do that with wooden National gear because it just falls down. Like, it's solid. Like I said, I will cover the rebate at the end and I'll discuss it in further detail. Now, as you can see here, this is a top bee space hive. So all of the other polyhives that I've reviewed on the market, with the exception of the Paradise National Polyhive, are bottom bee space, and that means that the top of the frames are flush with the top of the box. Now, this system here is a top bee space system, which means that you don't have the bee space at the bottom and you have it at the top there. So this rim here gives you your top bee space. Now, that's really nice in terms of management Really does help protect against kind of crushing bees, because when you're putting the boxes back on, your bee space is at the bottom instead of the top. So you can always see what's going on with the bees. You can blow them with a little bit of smoke like that, they go down, you can safely put the box on top and not crush them. So when you take another super like this and you place that on the top there, you've got your bee space on top of the frames, not underneath the frames. And in effect, for the bees, it makes no difference whatsoever. You've got a frame, a single bee space, and another frame. That difference is where it comes in for the beekeeper and the ease of use for the beekeeper. But this is a top bee space system and it works really well. Now onto the brood box then. And one of the key design features of this new, brand new 12-frame Poly National Hive is the ability for it to take 12 frames. So in here I've got 12 DN4 National frames. You've still got a little bit of space here at the end as well, so it's not gonna be a real tight squeeze trying to get things out. There's also enough room for a little dummy board if that's what you want to add in. So you can get 12 frames and a dummy board in here. And because you're using a poly hive, the bees are going to use all of those frames to rear brood. So it's going to be really interesting to see how my colonies do with the extra frame in there. And an extra frame's not that much, it's maybe like 8% extra in terms of the area that's available to the queen. But it could make a big difference in terms of whether you need to jump up to say a double brood or a 14 by 12. Just nice to have, nice option, gives you a nice even number of frames as well for when you're doing splits. As you can see, we're back onto the top B-Space system again. Talking about that, you've got the B-Space sitting on top of the frames here, where the bottom B-Space would bring those frames up by about 7 or 8 millimeters to keep it flush. You've got your positive plastic rebate all the way around the edge. You've got 4 handhelds, one on each side. The 2 on this side are a little bit more shallow, but fine for actually lifting it up, no problem at all. And then at the front there, you've got your entrance block, and the entrance block really does come in handy if you're doing a Demaray, like I say, any vertical split. You're lifting up a brood box, putting it on top, putting a queen excluder in the middle, and you've either got your original queen upstairs or you've got queen cells upstairs and you want her to go off and get mated and use a separate entrance. Gives you the ability to do that. If you don't want it, you can just glue it in place, no problem at all. Now, as we discussed on a lot of our previous other Polynational hives, I always look for space above the frame lugs. I don't want them getting stuck down like they'd get on the Suyenti. It's a real nightmare. Obviously with this design, a top bee space, and then you've got the boxes coming all the way up to the edge like that where the negative rebate starts. You're not going to have any issues with the frames sticking to each other. Right. So then we move on to the floor. Absolutely flying through this review. You start off with a nice positive rebate. So that's where all the rebate system starts. Really, really solid. Like, it's surprisingly weighty, this floor. They've put a lot of polystyrene into it. Gonna get a decent amount of insulation from below. You've got a nice stainless steel mesh screwed into position, and then you've even got a bit of a buffer over the top of it just to make sure that's really well held in place. Now, one of my pet hates, if you've watched my previous Polyhive reviews, is, is the Corex monitoring boards. And I've always said it's Really frustrating because you just put the board in, you pull it out, and it just knocks everything off. Maybe they could have something with a little handle and a little bit of a scoop. And Abello have absolutely nailed this. Rock-solid plastic, it's not going to break. It's got a little handle on it, it's nice and deep, so you could leave it for a good while while it kind of builds up some detritus in there. I'd even go as far as to say that is best in class in terms of a Varroa monitoring tray. It's big, it's solid, It's got nice depth, it's got a handle. Can't get any better than that in my opinion. Now, the same with all the poly, uh, Abello hides, you have this entrance reducer here, and I really like this entrance reducer. It's a really simple design, gives you the ability to take it out if you want kind of free flow on a really hot, busy day in the middle of spring or summer. You can put it in like that to reduce it down to whatever size you want. So that function there, it reduces it down to about A third of the size, maybe half the size, but the bees can get in, the bees can get out. Then you've got this function here to slide that in, so then the bees can get in, the bees can get out, but any rodents can't get in or out. And then if you turn that mouse guard the other way around and put it back in, you fully block off and seal the hive. And you can do all of that from the outside, you can do all of that while the box is on the hive, so you don't need to lift the box up to do it. You can do it all from outside the hive, which is nice design. I really like these entrance reducers. Multifunctional, can do absolutely everything that you need to do. They're plastic, so they're not going to rot, they're not going to break, and they're simple as well in their design. So that's it for the review. We talked about the floor, the brood box, the supers, the crown board, and the roof. Now there's a couple of things that I do want to talk to you about a little bit more, and that is the rebate system. Now you would know from previous videos that I'm not a fan of manufacturers locking you into a system. But that is just my own personal preference, and the only reason that I say that is because I've got 300 supers that I need to use with my hives. So I'm looking at this in 2 completely different ways. I'm saying, is this poly hive suitable for my operation to integrate with all of my other kit? And at first I thought it's not, and I've looked a little bit further into this, and you know what, it's not that far off it at all. And I'll cover that a little bit later in this video. But in terms of people who are buying their first polyhive, in terms of people who maybe don't have that much kit, want to look to kind of go for a superior polyhive or something a little bit different, then the features that you're getting on this polyhive take away the compatibility issue completely, and we'll discuss it later. This is by far and away, at this moment in time, the best polyhive on the UK market, in my opinion. Now you might not think that you can just plonk your wooden nationals on there, And like I say, we'll cover this in a little bit, but take away any compatibility issues whatsoever, this poly hive has everything. It has rebates so your boxes aren't sliding around all over the place. It has top bee space so you're not crushing bees, makes it a lot easier to manage. It has 12 frames, so it has the interior dimensions of a wooden National with a little bit extra space in there as well. So you actually get 12 usable frames, not 11 and a dummy board. It has market-leading polystyrene density, 160 grams per liter. It has a best-in-class varroa monitoring tray, has a really top-quality entrance reducer. The plastic that's put into these rebates is rock solid. It's going to last for decades and decades, probably going to outlast the poly. It has the entrance plugs, so you have the flexibility to use the boxes on vertical splits. It has a crown board with a central hole that that fits the poly Ashforth feeder, so you can feed fondant, you can feed syrup, you've got top quality insulation, and you've got the rebates that don't let water in. So in my mind, the only thing that anybody could possibly say negative about this poly hive is the fact that it's not compatible with a wooden National. And I have to say, over the last 6 months I've been looking at this hive and I've been thinking, they've done such a nice job at Abelo designing this hive, but I wish they'd made it compatible with the wooden National because it kind of rules me a little bit out of the market for this one. And it's only since I've got this home about 2 hours ago and I've had a little bit of a play with it that it's not that far off at all. So I'll talk to you a little bit now about wooden national compatibility. So with a lot of the rebated hive systems, there literally is no way of putting any sort of wooden national kit alongside the rebated system. They just don't match up and it's a complete mess and it doesn't work. Whereas the Maysmore system, the Payne system, The differences are not that much at all, and you just put the wooden nationals on and it sits on there. It doesn't look the best, but in a practical sense, it does work. Now, my concerns were twofold with this one. One with the rebate and the fact that it wouldn't work with a wooden national system, and the other one with the fact that it's a top bee space hive and then you're putting bottom bee space nationals on, so you're going to effectively have a double bee space in the middle. And it's only since I've got this home, I've had a look at it for the last couple of hours, that I think both of those issues really don't matter too much. So I'm going to go and grab a wooden National now and I'm going to show you why I think that. So I've seen a lot of questions on social media directed at Abello saying what queen excluder is going to work with this, are you going to have a bespoke one, does it sit on top of the rebate, how do the boxes go together, does it sit on top of the frames, and I think Abello have been a little bit cheeky on this one. They've known the answer to this all along and they've been holding it back and I'm pretty sure they're going to release it over the next few days. But it's fully compatible with wooden National queen excluders, both plastic and metal. So this is a plastic queen excluder that I got from Thorns, 460mm by 460mm. And is it a coincidence that it fits onto the rebate within literally half a millimeter? Like, it is the perfect fit. So they've clearly been looking at this and thinking, how can we actually get some sort of compatibility with this kit? So you put it on like that and it just fits perfectly. So I'm looking at that and thinking, this is really, really good. You've got the top of the, the frame on a top bee space system. You've then got your rebate that lifts it up, gives you a bee space. You've effectively got a wire-framed queen excluder. So like on my Sorrenti boxes, but Bottom bee space, then a single bee space on the queen excluder, and then the actual metal of the queen excluder. That is identical to this setup here because you've got the, the top of the frame sitting in the box. You've then got this plastic rim here that lifts it up one bee space, and then you've got your queen excluder here. So what that allows you to do is you just pop your wooden National on top like that. Fits perfectly. It's 460mm by 460mm on that rebate there. Like, I can't believe it. They could have publicized this a little bit better because I've been kind of fretting thinking this isn't going to work. I'm going to have to say this in the review that, oh, I don't like the fact that it's not compatible with wooden hives. But the fact is it is fully compatible with it. And the same caveat that I would say with, say, the Paradise system, whereby you're not going to start— have a Nabelo brood box and then a wooden National and then start trying to put a poly One on top like that. Now that does work, and you can see it slots on perfectly in terms of the rebate, but your bee space will be completely out if you do that. So you can't actually work it that way around unless you were going to bring in some sort of castellation, and maybe that's something that Abelo would do in the future. If you were to add some sort of castellations into these boxes, you could really easily convert them to a bottom bee space system, and then You can completely mix and match these hives, like you just do what you want with them. But until such time that a castellation does come out for these boxes, and I'm pretty sure that will be very soon in the future, all I would say in terms of compatibility is you start from the bottom, you work your way up with poly national 12-frame boxes, and then you go on top with your box like this. Now all that you're going to have to do if you do this system, obviously you're going to have your queen excluder down here, you're just going to have to pop another queen excluder up here just to equalize that bee space. And the bees really won't know what's going on. They'll just think they've got a frame, a bee space, another queen excluder, another bee space, and then a frame. So if you put that on like that, they'd build brace comb. If you pop an additional queen excluder in at that higher height there, then it works absolutely fine. Now, if you are just thinking about getting the floor, the roof, the brood box, and you've got all of your own supers, then you literally don't have an issue. You just crack on with it. You just say, right, I put my brood box there, my queen excluder, stack my supers up as high as they want to go. And then the roof just fits on like perfectly because the rebate inside is 460mm by 460mm. Like, it slots on, so it's not just kind of balancing on. You see it, you watch it go down, slots on, gives you a really, really nice tight seal. And then obviously you can use the crown board as well if you wanted to. So I wanted to focus on that a little bit, and I know I've gone into quite a lot of detail on that, but it was the elephant in the room. It was what everyone was talking about, saying, oh, I completely dismiss The Abelo 12-frame poly National hive, because it's not compatible with wood. And it really, really not that far off at all. And if Abelo can work on how they can fix some castellations into these boxes to give you the option to go bottom bee space, top bee space, then it's fully compatible. They've designed it that way. They've done it 460 millimeters all the way around. The wooden National sits on it. The roof will sit on it as well like that. This is a really, really good hive, and I can't see anything on the market at this moment in time that comes anywhere close to this product. So a couple of things I forgot to say while I was doing the review. One is obviously the roof's got enough depth for fondant, but it's also got enough depth to keep that feeder inside at all times, so it stacks away nicely. Another really big feature, and I don't know how I missed this one, is it has integrated hive tool management. So you're not weaseling it in trying to chip away at that poly. you've got space to get that in and crack the boxes without doing any damage. That's a really, really nice simple design touch. You've got plastic protection in there as well. It just slots in, so there's always space. You don't have to start chiseling away to get your hive tool in there to break the boxes apart, which can be really difficult early in the season. So that's it for the review, and I have to say, I've only kind of come up with a lot of this stuff in the last couple of hours. This literally turned up this morning, and I've had a good play around with it. But I can't believe how compatible that is with the Wooden National system. Like I said, I've been fretting, I've been worrying about doing this review. This product was sent to me free of charge, and it's obviously difficult for me doing the reviews if someone sends me something to say, here's this great new product, can you review it for me? And me sending it back saying it's just not going to work, it's not actually a practical product. And Abello have just completely proved me wrong. It's such a good Polyhive. Everything about it, it is best in class. It really is. My favorite thing is the fact that it just— you can hold it like that and shake it. You can literally hold the boxes like that and they just don't fall apart because of that rebate system in there. Like, it offers real practical benefits when you're kind of managing your hives. And I thought that rebate system, the functionality that they've added in there, was going to come at a cost, and it was going to mean that I can't use my Wooden National kit with it. And they've just proved me wrong. When they add those castellations in there, there is zero that I can moan about this hive. And you know that I love to find things that I don't like. I like to find things and say, oh, they could do this better. The only one thing they need to add to this is some sort of castellations or some way of increasing that frame runner height to turn that into a bottom bee space hive if people want that. So it's really important to say that if people want that, because if I didn't have any hives whatsoever, I would just go with this system. I'd forget about the wooden National system because then you've got rebates on all of your boxes, you've got the additional frame, you've got the holes so you can do walkaway splits, vertical splits, whatever you want to do. They come pre-painted, they're 160 grams per liter density. Like, I'm gushing a little bit about this, as you can probably tell, but this is such a good poly hive. Now I need to buy a lot more poly hives later on this season. This is a serious contender for that. You can forget about all the Swienty that are in the background. They do not come close to this poly hive. This, at the moment in time, is my new favorite poly hive on the UK market. Now you may see a couple of other poly hives in the background that you may not normally notice there. So we've got the old style Abelo poly hive with the deep roof, and then we've got the shallow roof version as well. So they do 3 versions of Abelo. We're going to focus on that in a completely separate video. Look about cross-compatibility between the 3 systems, the pros, the cons of each of the systems, and I'll tell you which one I think is best. But at the moment, this is the one for me. I don't think you can really come much closer to this polyhive. So that's it for the review. Thanks to Damien for sending me these polyhives. Thanks for giving me the chance to be the first person in the UK, in the world, to review this polyhive. It's a good reason to stick around at Black Mountain Honey. We get the UK exclusives on lots of different manufacturers' polyhives. So hit that subscribe button, like the video, stick a comment on, and let's talk about this hive. As always, I hope you've enjoyed the video. 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