In this episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping, Laurence Edwards (Black Mountain Honey) systematically reviews the polyhives he owns, highlighting the single biggest drawback he finds in each model. He critiques the Suyenti (no rebate space above frame lugs), Abello (excessive roof size and over‑complicated entrance fittings), Paynes and Maysmore (unstable, "wibbly‑wobbly" crown board unsuitable for bottom‑bee‑space hives), BS Honeybees supers (central slots that can collect debris and are unnecessary for his management style), and the Paradise Box (limited to 10 frames, lacking an 11‑frame option). Edwards then explains his review philosophy: he is not paid to favor manufacturers, he discloses any free product or paid promotion, and he maintains full transparency with viewers and HMRC. He stresses that his opinions are personal, may differ from others, and that he will only publish reviews he feels comfortable with, even returning free products if the review would be overly negative. The video ends with a call to subscribe and a reminder to hit the notification bell.
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Hi, I'm Lawrence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. In this video, I am going to tell you what I don't like about polyhives. So how about this? I'm going to go through every single polyhive that I own, and I'm going to give you the number one thing that I don't like about it. Right, start off then with the Suyenti. Probably give you 10 things I don't like about the Suyenti. Number one thing I don't like about the Suyenti is the lack of rebates above the frame lugs. So if you put another box on like that, there's no gap. They propolise the frame lugs to the box above. You go to lift that box up and it lifts the frames up. Really, really annoying. A lot of other manufacturers have designed that out now. That's my number one pet hate, the Swienty Polyhive. Right, moving on to the Abello Polyhive. Number one thing I don't like about the Abello Polyhive is all of the little bits that come with it. Understand why they do it. For me, I'm not a fan of them. I would be happy with one entrance in the roof and one entrance in the brood box. All of the rest of them I personally could do without, and I'd welcome the saving that I might get if we standardized the design and simplified it a little bit. The thing I don't like is the size of the roof. It's ginormous in size across both ways like that and in depth, and they've tried to integrate it as a gable roof. Gives you a lot of insulation, but it's just far too big for my opinion. It's the number one thing I don't like about the National Beehive Supply polyhives. Right, next one, Paynes and Maysmore. I'm combining these 2 together, and that is the wibbly wobbly crown board. My view, no place on a bottom bee space hive. Works on a top bee space. I find them really annoying and difficult to use on a bottom bee space hive. It's the worst thing for me about Maysmore and Paynes. Right, onto the BS Honeybees Super. And the worst thing for me is the slots down the middle of the super. I've got a colony of bees and it's got 6 frames and I wanna split further upwards. I'm gonna promote that to a new hive. So this feature for me, I'm not gonna use it and you're gonna potentially get crud and stuff built in the side and it might be a little bit of a nuisance. So that's the number one feature that I don't like in the BS Honeybees polyhive. So then the final polyhive that I've got up here is the Paradise Box. And my pet hate with this box is that it only takes 10 DN4 frames or SN4 frames, and then it's only got enough room for a dummy board. Just annoys me. Wish it took 11 frames. That's the number one thing I don't like about the Paradise Bee Boxes. So you might be sitting there thinking, why am I going through all of the bad things that I don't like about these products? And I just wanted to let you know I'm not ruled by the manufacturers here. This is no-nonsense beekeeping. The manufacturers aren't paying me what to say. I have my own opinion on things, And it might differ from other people's opinions, and that is what beekeeping is all about. I'm here to show you what the products are about. I want to give you an in-depth look into those products, and I'll tell you what I like about them, and I'll tell you what I don't like about them. Excuse me if I do get a little bit giddy when I get a new product and I get a little bit excited about it, but that's just the way it is. I love beekeeping and I love looking at all the kit, and I do get carried away and excited. But I am free and entitled to my own opinion, And if I want to say bad stuff about the products, I will. And if I want to say good stuff about the products, I'll say the good stuff as well. There is 100% transparency on this channel. If somebody sends me a product for free to review, if people want to put that in inverted commas, that's fine. I'm open, I'm honest, and I put a little sign up at the beginning saying it's a paid promotion. And I tell you that the guys at BS Honeybees or Abello or Paynes or whoever have sent me a free product to review, and I'll still give you my honest opinion on that review. Now I've had it on at least two instances where somebody's given me a free product, I've reviewed it, and I've sent it back to them, and I've not posted the review because I personally wouldn't feel comfortable taking a free product of value off someone and then going and doing damage to their company via a review. So I stand by every single review that I've done on this channel: BB Wear Bee Suit, the Abello Poly Hives, the BS Honeybee Poly Hives, the Suyenti Poly Hives that I've said I absolutely hate. The Park Beekeeping Nuc, the Paynes, the Maysmoor, the BS Honeybee Supplies, all of them. I've reviewed them all and I've given you my opinion on all of them. And you might think that the ones that have been given free of charge are maybe slightly more weighted towards the positive, but I've been open, I've been honest, and I've told you that is a free product that's been given to me by the manufacturer. And I've conformed with all of the legalities in terms of declaring that both to the viewers and to HMRC. So they're the things that I don't like about those polyhives. There's the Abello. I think they've maybe got too many plugs. There's the Suyenti that's got tons of different issues. Big one that I really don't like is the lack of space above that rebate. The Paynes and the Maysmore, not a fan of the crown board whatsoever. I use an upturned feeder instead. The Paradise Bee Box, I wish it was either an 11-frame or a 10-frame, not a 10.5-frame. The National Beekeeping Supplies, too big a roof in my opinion. waste of material. And the BS Honeybees, I don't think they needed to put the slot in the super, because for me personally, it's not something I'm going to use and can lead to maybe some crud building up there over time. So thanks for watching. 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.
