BB Wear Ultra Ventilated Gauntlet Review

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. So I'm going to try and do as many videos as I possibly can while I'm isolating at home. The rooster is in the background as normal, he doesn't like me coming up to his area, so he's letting me know. Today's video, we're going to review the BBWare Ultra ventilated gauntlets. So before I got my BB Wear ultra ventilated suit, a real issue that I had kind of with other beekeeping suits is I used to take a huge amount of stings to my arms. And now the reason that that happened was because the suit was always tight to my arms, and then I'd pull on a kind of gauntlet style glove that came up to about there, and it pinned the fabric down really, really thin and tight to my skin. which meant that when the bees tried to kind of access it through there, it was really easy for them to sting me. So anywhere else, as you can see, we've got kind of really baggy pants. My bee suits are always really, really baggy, and it stops the bees kind of stinging you unless they're pulled tight up against your skin. So I've taken a look at these BB Wear ultra ventilated gauntlets from BB Wear, just with an aim to kind of give you something to look at, to purchase, to kind of improve your beekeeping without having to spend all that money on a BB Wear suit. So you've seen my previous reviews. If you can afford it, I would definitely recommend the BB Wear Ultra Ventilated Suit, the full body version. Absolutely fantastic. Like, it's 18 degrees here today, and even with the top of this beekeeping suit off, I'm really, really warm. So what do we do with the gauntlets? So obviously gauntlets kind of go on like this. Now the way that BB Wear recommend that you wear these gauntlets is that you put them on like that and you actually wear them underneath your beekeeping suit. And then what that does is it gives you supreme sting protection all around there. Like, I can feel it. I've got that compression in there, so I've got the thickness of the suit, which is maybe like 1 or 2 millimeters, the actual beekeeping suit, and then I've got the thickness of the gauntlet underneath, which is 5 millimeters. So I've got 6 millimeters of protection there. Now if you were to do that kind of with a normal foam or like another fabric or something like that, it would increase the heat no end. But because these are ventilated, and you could probably kind of bring them up a little bit like that as well, because they're ventilated, it doesn't actually add any kind of insulation properties, um, and keeps you nice and cool. Like I can feel kind of just having those on there now, it does give you a little bit of kind of extra airflow through it and does keep you a lot cooler. But the main reason for these is that it really reduces the chances of any kind of stings around your arms, which I found was the area that they really, really did target. Another thing to say is that if you're looking at kind of upgrading an old BBRWear suit, this could be the answer for you. So if you don't want to spend the full amount on a BBRWear ventilated wetsuit, maybe go for the gauntlets as a kind of starter and see what you think of the material. Also, and this is something I wasn't aware of, is that BB Wear will sell you either the full round beekeeping veil or the fencing veil in the ventilated version, and then that will attach directly to your old BB Wear suit. And what that does is that it allows all of the heat to kind of come out via your head, and then that keeps you cool. So it's kind of like a bit of an upgrade. Instead of going for the full BB Wear ventilated suit, you can start off with the gauntlets, you can start off with the veil, And then take it from there. It's like the suits are fully upgradable, and it makes a really, really kind of nice start and an introduction into ventilated suits. So I realize I look a little bit ridiculous here, but I just want to kind of give you a feel of how cooling these gauntlets are. Like, they feel bulky, they look bulky, and that's a good thing because it stops the stinger getting through and getting you. But when you put them on, Like, it's warm here today, it's like 17 degrees, and you can put these on and they don't add any warmth to my arm. So, do you know what I mean? You kind of just expect it— like there, a bit of a kind of gust of wind came through and you could really feel that cooling effect all the way over your skin. Um, so if you were to have like a very small amount of sweat there— and again, I mean, a really kind of nice cooling effect from the breeze then— but if you were to have a small amount of sweat there, the air can come in and it can cool that sweat on the surface of your skin. And it really keeps you cool. Like, I mean, I've kind of wore the full suit out now and I get this feeling all over from that. But it's just, it's quite amazing just to put these on and feel that airflow through them. It's very cooling and I really would recommend anyone to kind of try it. So why do I need these gauntlets? I've got the BB Wear Ultra Suit, the full body version. The reason I've got these is that some days it's probably not hot enough to kind of warrant wearing the full BB Wear Ultra Ventilated Suit. So I wanted kind of something just to upgrade my existing BB Wear suits just a little bit to kind of enable me to keep a little bit cooler on those days. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to wear the suit, my standard BB Wear suit, kind of early spring, and I'm going to do it with the ventilated gauntlets. I might even upgrade my hood and put a ventilated hood on top of that as well. And then I've kind of got a suit for every stage of the season. I don't need to kind of go from being really, really hot to being really, really cool. I've got somewhere in the middle where I can kind of remain at a really nice temperature. So that's what I'm going to do with them. So to summarize, the good points of the BB Wear Ultra Ventilated Gauntlet are: they give you incredible sting protection over your arms, which is the number one area where I've experienced bee stings in the past. They keep you cool. You can wear them underneath your BB Wear standard suit, and they give you that additional sting protection whilst not adding any kind of heat. You can wear them up to there and put your BBR suit on up to there and have real kind of good throughput of air through there as well. So they're a really, really nice upgrade, and what's the best thing about them is they give you a chance to kind of feel firsthand the cooling properties of the suit. So if you don't want to kind of spend all of the money and you think it's a bit of a gamble, I don't think it is, I think it's a great suit, but if you want to kind of feel the material for yourself, You can buy the gauntlets, do a little bit of an upgrade, and then it kind of gives you a bit of an introduction to ventilated wetsuits, and then you can take it from there. So again, we're not going to keep you too long for this video. We're trying to reduce the length of the videos down a little bit, stop me rambling on. So we'll leave it there. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time. Bye!