Maisemore 6 Frame Poly Nuc Review

Hi, I'm Lawrence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today I'm going to review the brand new 6-frame poly nuc from Maysmoor. So I bought this in their latest sale, I think I paid about £32 for it. So I've done a review of the previous version of the Maysmoor poly nuc, but they've redesigned the roof, and the roof was the area that I really had issues with in the past. So as promised, I've gone back to Maysmoor, I've bought myself a brand new poly nuc, Paid full price for it, so I'm going to give you my honest review. So we'll start from the bottom, work our way up to the top. What do I like about the Maysmore Poly Nuc? And I'll start off by saying all of the nucs that I've got, they serve a purpose. There's not really one that I would pick out and say, wow, that's a really poor nuc, I don't like it. Definitely got my favorites though. The Maisies, I'd say, sit somewhere towards the middle or the top of kind of the spectrum in terms of what I like about the Nuke. So I'm just going to run through a few of the features and then I'll tell you about what I like and what I don't like. So first off, we've got a mesh floor, and I think they've improved that mesh floor since last time. It's a full-size mesh floor. There's no way of blocking it up, but it seems to be like really nice solid mesh. So I really do like the, the simple design of the solid floor. And I like that it's screwed, so it's easily repairable. It's just a piece of standard Varroa mesh screwed into the poly, should last for absolutely ages. The next thing to say is it's a single molded base unit, so instead of having a separate floor and a separate brood box, which is a Maysmore design that I'll review in a separate video, so hit that subscribe button, this one here is a single molded unit. I quite like the single molded units. Doesn't quite offer the flexibility of the individual component units. Keeps the cost down though, and it just makes it a little bit easier to move them round because you don't need to strap them up. So then at the front here, you've got your standard nuc wheel with the kind of normal entrance, vented closure, and then a queen excluder. That's pretty standard across all of the nucs that I've got, apart from the Abello one that's got the different slot. I quite like the wheel because. It's cheap, it works, it's easy to replace, and it's really quick to close them up when you're moving it. So I do like the wheel. Next thing to say is this is a bottom bee space nuc. Now I've just got a couple of supers in here just to show you the spacing, but it's easier to say the frames sit flush with the top of the nuc, so it's bottom bee space, unlike the BS Honeybees one which is top bee space. So you have an 8mm gap between the top of this section here and the top of the frames. If I had to choose, I prefer the top bee space option, but I don't really have any issues with this bottom bee space version. It serves a purpose and it works well. So the mould was initially designed like that, so I don't see any reason to change it. Now, what I do like on the Maysmore is the fact that they've got these frame runners here. So they've got integrated moulded frame runners. Now, this differs from the Payne's Polynucs that doesn't have the frame runners. So the entire face of the lower side of the frame lug sits on poly, and it's really difficult to get the frames out once they've propolised them down. I find in the Maysmore, because you've got these frame lugs, you can quite easily lift the frames out. I find that really, really helpful, and it's just a simple design solution that makes life easier for the beekeeper. So not a huge amount more to say about the box. It's a single 6-frame box. There's no dividers, no integrated anything like that. You can't have 2 different sections of colonies in here. It's just one 6-frame colony, but it's nice and simple and it serves its purpose. So it's made out of polystyrene that's 100 grams per litre, definitely at the lower end of the spectrum of poly density. This is what it was like when I first started getting poly, and it's strong, but you can push it and you can dent it. It damages quite easily with a hive tool. Definitely not as solid as the, the Abello ones that have the plastic frame inserts, and it's not even as strong as the BS Honeybee one that's 120 grams per liter density. So it's just got that extra 20% kind of strength to it. You'll get a really good lifespan out of them if you take care of them carefully and fill up any gaps, but they are liable to a little bit of like wasp damage, definitely liable to rodent attack, but most of the polyhives are liable to attacks of that sort. So then we move on to the feeder, and there is no change from the feeder. There's no change from the base unit as well. The only difference in this one is the roof. But yeah, the feeder you've got here, this is a Miller feeder, so the bees access up through this central slot here, and you fill both of these sides here with syrup. So you can only feed syrup in this feeder. Like, there is a way to take out the Perspex and to take out these doors and then to put fondant in. But when you need to put fondant in, I haven't got the time to do that, and I really don't like the disruption that it gives to the colony by doing that. So it's, it's awkward. And Maysmore have obviously taken that on board and said the feeder isn't fit for purpose for feeding fondant. And I like that. I really like it when manufacturers take on board good feedback and constructive feedback and go away and fine-tune their products in order to make them kind of more user-friendly. That's definitely what Maysmore have done here. So in previous iterations, I used to cut out holes on one side, and I had syrup in one side and fondant on the other side, and that works really well. And it's really annoying when the, the bees are clustered on the wrong side because you've got to turn things round. But even more annoying is you restrict yourself to a really small amount of syrup because you can only feed in one half. So I've bodged loads of my feeders to do this, and it's really bad, and I'm really annoyed that I did it. So I wouldn't recommend doing it. I would recommend exchanging for this new and improved roof. So what Maysmore have done here with this roof is they've made it considerably deeper. So the old version of the roof was only about 25 or 30mm, didn't have any overlap, and it just had a standard rebate around the edge. Now you've got the standard rebate plus at least 50mm of void of space where you can add randomly a bit of Celotex if you want some more insulation, but specifically you can add your fondant for when you're feeding your nucs over winter. Now I find that nucs are the ones that really do need that fondant over winter, if any of them are going to need it. If you've cram-packed all of your bees into a nuc, they can eat through the stores really quickly, so I find easy feeding of fondant for nucs Is a real key criteria for me in terms of the design features. So I'm glad that Maysmore have taken that on. So the way you feed the fondant though is imagine this colony here is full of bees and it's winter and I lift it up and I'm like, geez, that's really light. They need a feed of some fondant. What I do now is I lever up this, I take it away. I've got a big cluster of bees there. I take some fondant. So I've got Honeybee Pro fondant here. Imagine that's sitting on top of the frames, and then you just put your roof back on. Gives you the problem that you will need to store your feeder somewhere else. That annoys me a little bit because it's just, ah, I have to store a feeder somewhere. Where do I store it? And these are really prone to attack from rodents during the winter. But still, the problem, the main problem, is that you need to get fondant onto your colonies. So it's a nice design, and I really like that they've taken that on board. Clearly just adapted the mould. It's not a redesigned mould, it looks like just an adapted mould to give you that additional depth, which means that you can feed that fondant. I've got a big 2 kilogram slab of fondant on there now just by putting this roof on. So what I really, really like, my favourite point about all of this, is that you can buy that roof on its own. A number of the other suppliers say if you want to come and buy a roof or a feeder, you need to buy the whole unit from us. They've clearly got single moulds with each of the components as part of that individual mould, and I understand why they do that because it cuts cost. But with this one, you can go to Maysmoor and you can say, I'll have 50 of your new roof please, and they'll send you 50 individual roofs, which means that you can go and upgrade all of your old Maysmoor polyhives that have the old roof to give you this new functionality. So they're not locking you into a new system, they're not saying if you want a new one you need to buy the whole lot. You can buy these and pick them up for around £10-12 and upgrade all of your old Mazemore kit, and I would highly recommend it. This is what I'm doing. All of my old Mazes kit I'm buying new roofs for, and then I've got the functionality to feed fondant, and then I can go ahead and buy an additional feeder for it as well where I've broken all of my old feeders. So I can upgrade the kit incrementally to bring it up to the new standards. So in summary then, what do I like about the new Maysmoor Polynuc? I love the roof. The roof is excellent. It's a real design upgrade over the previous version. Means that I can feed about 6 kilograms of fondant at a time if needs be. Take a big block of baker's fondant, cut it in half down the middle, and I can just stick that on, leave the bees to it, and not worry about it. That's the biggest design change, and I'm really happy that they've made that change. What else I like about it? It's one of the cheaper poly nucs on the market. It's, it's the price of poly has gone up loads over the last three years. It seems it's been ten percent, ten percent, ten percent each and every year. So I remember buying these and they were like twenty quid, and they're now thirty two pounds each. But comparatively to the rest of the market, they're at the cheaper end or there or thereabouts, about average. So I like the cost of them. They're not excessively expensive. I like that they're simple. I like that there's no kind of gizmos or added frills to it. It's a simple design and it works well. Things I don't like about it: I'm still not keen on the feeder. I would have liked to see kind of some sort of fondant integration into the feeder or a way of opening up the feeder to allow the bees up through the feeder to reach the fondant on the top. Could have been some tweaks. I'm not sure how it would have worked, but I still don't like the fact that in order to feed fondant, I need to take off the feeder and then put the roof back on, and then I have to store that. A little bit sloppy, but I can kind of live with it. Other things that I don't particularly like about it is the fact that it's still using this 100 grams per liter poly. I think that the design development has moved on now, and there could be an upgrade in the density of the poly using the same molds, and maybe just pass on a little bit of that cost to the customer. But it would really improve the density and the durability of the poly. So I would have liked to see that bumped up just a little bit. And that's about it. There's, there's not a huge amount to say. I've already done a previous review of this poly nuc, and I said it last time, I do like it. It is a good nuc. They've definitely improved it, so it's gone up in my estimations, and it's something that I will use and I will continue to use for my beekeeping work. So if you have any specific questions about this poly nuc or any other poly nucs, give me a shout. I'm always happy to talk beekeeping. So that's it for the video. I hope you've enjoyed this one. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.