Laurence Edwards reviews the Abelo German-style mini mating hive, a direct copy of the now-patent-free Apidea design. At £24.99, it costs less than an Apidea but more than cheaper alternatives like Swibind, and Edwards says its superior build quality makes it worth the price for reliable queen mating.
In this video, I'm going to review the brand new German mini mating nuc from Abello. So Damien kindly provided this one for me free of charge when I went down to see him at the Welsh Beekeepers Convention. I really, really like this. In this video, I'm going to talk you through all of the components, why I think this is a very, very good product, and some of the similarities that it has with different products on the market. So first off, I was not aware that Apidea have lost the patent for their mini mating nucs. Whether there was some difficulty in terms of prolonging that pattern, or it just wasn't worth their while in terms of the expense, it's gone. They no longer own the pattern for that mini mating nuke, even though the kind of Swibind ones were very, very similar, effectively a ripoff of them anyway, coming out of China. It seems that anyone can copy that exact pattern now. I always liked the Apidaias. The Apidaias were so much better than the Swibinds, just in terms of the features. and in terms of the actual feel and the durability of the material. So this German Mini Mating Nuc here is pretty much an exact copy of an Apidea. I'm going to go through it in this video, I'll show you it from top to bottom, and I'll tell you why I think it's a really, really good product. So this is what the German Mini Mating Hive looks like. Comes in a really nice hard, high-density grey polystyrene that would definitely need a little bit of a paint, but the first thing that I noticed with this is just how hard that polystyrene is. Can't even really make an indentation on it. And you compare that to, say, the Swibind or any of the cheaper ones, you can go in, you can make a dent straight away. That for me is the biggest benefit that you're going to get in buying one of these ones over one of the cheaper alternatives, is that they're so much more durable, which means they're going to last for a lot longer. Another nice feature on this one as well is that you have the 4 indentations on each corner which means they're fully stackable. Some of the other ones, you can stack them, but they're kind of just stacked by balance. These ones here, you've got the indentations which match up with the feet below, means that they're fully stackable. So looking at the front then, you've got the mesh up here. This slides up, really nice mechanism, and then you've got the entrance in the corner there. Taking the lid off, you really do start to notice the quality differences versus some of the competition. So first off is the nice hard crown board that you get. It's not a thin wavy one. I mean, it is a thin wavy one, but at least it's a good quality thin wavy one. You can kind of hear that it's good quality, nice and thick. And you know, it's German made. The hole is in the right place, and then also you get a little tab to cover the hole as well so you don't get any bees in the roof. That's where you're going to put your queen cell, and it lines up perfectly with the frames below. Little things like that, you know, they don't cost much money, but it just turns it into a much better, superior product that actually does work. Then we get straight in. You've got your piece of mesh there, that just slots in nicely. You've got your standard frames. Wouldn't say there's anything really different in terms of these frames versus the Swibind ones. Pretty standard now. You can melt yourself a piece of wax onto there. I would recommend using plastic foundation though. Just works really well with plastic foundation, 'cause when you put it in back into the hive like that, Everything's held into place and it just slots in really nicely like that. It's a 3-frame hive, so you get 3 frames that you can take out, and then it's got a removable feeder, which is a really important feature on these mini mating hives. Means that if you take it out, you can increase it up to a 5-frame mini mating hive. Also means that you can take it out for cleaning as well. And as you can see, nice thick rims, not gonna leak out any syrup. Really good, nice strong polystyrene. So I think the feature that I like most about this little mini mating hive here is that it's got a fully removable polystyrene floor. Comes all the way out like that. It's good for cleaning, but also really, really good for when it comes to actually stocking your mini mating nucs. Means you can just slide it out like that, pop your bees in, close it back up again really, really quickly. You can see there the feel and the mechanism and the way that it just slides in and slides out means that it's a really, really easy mini mating hive to use. So there you go, that's my quick review of the new German Abello mini mating hive. They cost about £24.99 at the moment, which is quite a bit more than the cheaper Swibind, but it does come with a couple of additional features over and above that. But the big thing for me is it's quite a lot less than the Apidea, and that's what you really should be comparing this one to. Pretty much identical to the Apidea. And now that they've lost the patent, the other companies can copy these, get them up to a suitable similar quality to the Apidea, save you a couple of pounds at the same time. So would I recommend them? I've not run them yet, but having a look at them and comparing them to an Apidea, I would say without a doubt they're going to perform just as well, if not a little bit better, than an Apidea. And I would safely recommend them, buying them through Abello. Use them at the right time of the year, you'll get some really good queens mated in your mini mating hives. If you want to see a review of the Swybine mini mating hives that I reviewed earlier in the season, check out this video here where I do a similar review top to bottom of the Swybine hives from Bee Equipment.
