In this YouTube video, beekeeping presenter Laurence Edwards reviews the new Defender Series bee suits from Simon the Beekeeper. He begins by thanking the company for sending him a full suit and a jacket version, and announces a giveaway for the jacket. Edwards evaluates the fit, noting that only an extra‑large size was available and describing how the suit feels tight but well‑shaped, with long sleeves and legs that suit his measurements, and recommends a size up for larger waists. He discusses the improved veil—no longer suffering the manufacturing fault of previous models—highlighting its visibility, spacing, and protective armor. The suit’s protective features are examined in detail: thumb ties, elasticated cuffs, thicker Defender material on the arms, reinforced knee pads, zippered pockets (including ring‑pull zips), pen/clip pockets, and the ability to zip the suit over wellies. Edwards then conducts field tests at his Heather Apiary, first in a calm German Buckfast colony where no stings penetrate the suit, and later in an aggressive “checkerboard” colony. He records a sting through his glove but none through the suit, noting the bees’ attempts and the suit’s performance. He concludes that the suit provides solid protection, comes with a two‑year warranty, and is backed by responsive customer service. Throughout, he maintains an enthusiastic yet honest tone, and reminds viewers how to enter the giveaway by liking the video and commenting on their current suit.
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Today I'm trialing the brand new Defender Series of suits from Simon the Beekeeper. So massive thanks to Simon and all the team down at Simon the Beekeeper for sending me 2 jackets to review.
They sent me the Defender Series in a full suit, and they've also sent me the Defender Series in a jacket form.
In this video, I'm going to give you an overview of the product, talk to you about the features, get inside a colony, talk to you about how good it is in terms of defending you from stings, and just give you my general overview on the product. As always with these videos, there's definitely going to be a prize, so I'm going to give away the jacket version of this suit to one lucky channel subscriber.
All right, man.
If you want to enter the competition, make sure you stay to the end to learn how you can enter. So unfortunately they didn't have a 2XL in stock, which means that I've managed to squeeze myself into an extra large suit. I'm quite proud that I've squeezed in, but it definitely doesn't fit.
It is a little bit tight, and for me, way too tight.
But you know what, I'm actually looking down at it and thinking it's got a really nice shape to the body.
It's not baggy, and this is a good indication for people size-wise, because I think in the body, in terms of the length, goes all the way down to my legs and it comes all the way down to my wrists as well. So the extra large has got good long arms. If you want some detailed measurements, when I buy suits from Charles Tyrwhitt or TM Lewin, I always go for a longer sleeve, and the longer sleeve is a 36-inch arm. So for the extra large suit— and I'll do an update on the 2XL— but for the extra large suit, that works really well, and it's probably a 35-centimeter long arm. I'm not worried that it's not too long, and once I've got my gloves over the top, I'm going to be really nicely protected.
Same for the leg. I take an inside leg 34, and the extra large suit caters for that.
What it definitely doesn't cater for is a rotund stomach, which is what I've got. So hopefully the 2XL will give you the same top to bottom arm and leg dimensions, but just with a little bit more flexibility in that tummy area.
Overall, it's a really nice fit.
I have to say, it is a good fit, and it's got like a nice stretch in the material, and it kind of like hugs your body a little bit, which probably isn't the best thing, but that's as a result of me getting the wrong size. I will update that on a 2XL. Overall, I think the fit is really nice. It's not big and baggy and spacious, but it's actually a little bit more slender and a little bit more tight-fitting. In terms of the veil, if you watch my previous review on the Simon the Beekeeper jacket, I identified quite a major fault in the veil, and it turns out that that was a manufacturing fault that came over from China, and that has been fixed now. So I know they're not selling those veils anymore.
I'm really happy because this veil here, no problem whatsoever with it.
Nice straight material, good visibility through it, good movement, and good space between my face and the bees. Previously it was kind of up like this and it was going to cause me issues even with a cap on. But you can see with this one here, I've not actually got a cap on and it's not coming down into my face at all. I'd still wear it with a cap because I always do with the fencing veils, but I've got really good protection around the sides and on the back, which has got the armor material on it. Good visibility on the front and good spacing.
I've got thumb ties on both of the wrists like that. That's really important for me.
Nice elasticated cuffs as well, again important. And nice to see that there's only a limited amount of polycotton material between the actual protective fabric and the end of my wrist there. Some other models, it takes it up a little bit higher, and I find that's where you get battered by the bees.
If there was one small criticism, I would say maybe take that a little bit smaller, you know, bring it to like 1 inch, go for the absolute minimum.
I find that is a real good way to kind of eliminate the stings on the arms and the wrists. And this is an area that the bees will target. But it's a substantial improvement on other suits that I've seen, and it's definitely going in the right direction.
So in terms of the Defender Series, what's different about it? And the main difference is this Defender material that they've got on the arms. It's noticeably thicker, really is thicker. It's got a slight ventilation feel about it as well. But I'm not going to talk too much about the fabric before I've gone and checked it out on the bees.
I want to see if the bees can sting me through this before I tell you that the bees can't sting you through it. Other features, we've got zipped pockets up here which are really nice, but this is me grumbling about all suits and it's definitely down to my phone size as opposed to the pocket size. I like jumbo oversized pockets, absolute monster ones, and the only way that I can get them on any bee suit is to get them custom made. My phone's just too big to fit into any pockets like that. But one really good thing that I like about these pockets is they're zipped. Don't like it when you get Velcro on the pockets like that. I find stuff falls out. You know, if you put stuff in there, you put like your queen cage in there or some scissors for cutting your queen's wings, once you zip it up, you know that's going to be sealed in, it's not going to fall out. And the zip quality is really good, and especially like the fact that it's a ring pull zip and not just a small fiddly zip. Really good.
In terms of the veil, exactly the same.
You've got these really nice 2 big strong finger pull zips, feels very secure all the way across, and then you've got the Velcro strap over the top. That should be really nice and secure.
And then going a little bit further down, you've got 2 pockets there. Good size.
Maybe we'd like them just a little bit bigger, but good-sized pockets to put your hands in. Made of nice polycotton material as well. I think the suit does look really nice. You can see what I mean about the tightness there. And don't get me wrong, that is nothing wrong to do with the suit. That is to do with the fact that I need to lose a little bit of weight. But it's tight fit, you know, it's not like baggy, completely baggy out here.
So if you're 6'1, 6'2 and you're slim, then this will fit you really, really well.
If you're bigger in the tummy like me, I would definitely go a size up.
So going further down, you've got the reinforced knee pads here, really nice strong material.
I find myself kneeling a lot, so good to see that. Obviously that's on both sides. And then you've got the zips, which means you can put the suit on once you've got your wellies on already. Really like the fact that you've got the zips, good elasticated cuff, and then it's even got a little bit of a pull that you can put over your wellies. That's not something that I ever do.
So final bit in terms of features, you've got a little pocket there that you can put your pens in. That's nice, nice little arm pocket.
And then in the pockets again, you've got this little clip for clipping things on. I always forget what that clip's for, but maybe for clipping your keys on or something like that. And on this one, it's not even pulling out.
So let's go and check out a colony. I'm going to go into a colony, do an inspection in my new bee suit, and see how it fares. So you can see, once you get your gloves on like that, it covers the vast majority of the polycotton, but there is still a little bit there. I find if the bees sting you there, they leave the pheromone on it, and then they do attack it at the next time. So maybe a good idea to wear gauntlets to protect that area, or on the next iteration of the suit, they can just Reduce that down a little bit. So it's a very busy day down here at the Heather Apiary, real heather flow on, so hopefully the bees will be kind.
Let's get into this colony here and see how the bees react to my new suit.
So okay, maybe there's a little bit of cheating going on here.
This is a very nice friendly colony, just showing you some of the frames of the heather honey we've got there. Beautiful heather honey.
Bees don't seem to be attacking me too much either at the moment. So the smell of heather honey, really nice coming from this colony.
Nice and gentle, and the bees haven't even had a go at the suit yet.
So okay, I'm definitely cheating.
This is a pure German Buckfast colony, really nice and calm. Taking a few daughters from this one this year as well, and they're doing very well, the F1 daughters.
I'm a little bit scared to go and test this on an angry colony, and I do have some angry colonies in this apiary.
And the only reason I'm saying that is because it's quite tight, and I'd prefer to do the test when I get it into a little bit of a baggy suit. Don't want to start saying anything about the suit, that they're stinging through it, because it is a bit tight at the moment.
Okay, we'll scratch that.
I'm going to go and open up an aggressive colony and see if they can sting me through the suit.
Okay, for anybody who has watched my channel before, you will know this colony here. This is my checkerboard colony, and we are in the process of requeening it.
So this is the checkerboard colony minus the queen, and the new queen's yet to be released.
So these will be at peak angriness. I'm not going to give you any feedback around this region because it is just too tight on me. The suit is too small. But I'll give you feedback around this region here, and we'll see if the bees can sting me through it.
I'll open it up now and give it a real good test.
Right, so I've already got my first sting through the glove. Shows that the bees are stinging here.
Nothing on the suit just yet.
So the bees are having a real good go there.
I can see a couple actually trying to sting me, and as yet, still no stings.
Let's pull out a couple of frames, and you can see, like, these are horrible, angry, angry bees. I will tell you if I get stung here. This isn't a promo for Simon. Said to Simon, all the team down there, you know, I'll always give my honest opinion of products. They sting me through this, I will tell you. And just to show, you can see that bee there. Like, these are stinging bees. That bee is trying to sting me, has actually stung me. You can see stings come out there. These are stinging bees. They're getting me on the hands at the moment. Nothing still through the suit. So super heather crop at this apiary. Really, really good heather crop. And for the people who think it's just angry bees that gather for heather, this is probably one of the average ones. Some of the colonies over there, absolute Bumper heather crop this year. I have to say, I'm so excited about requeening this colony.
They are horrible. That blue and white queen, she got squished, and I'm requeening them with an artificially inseminated Buckfast queen.
So just trying to get a close-up, see if you can see. The bees are going for the camera a little bit here, but they're not getting through this fabric. Really good to see.
They are hating on the camera though. They are really going for the camera.
Still no stings though.
Really happy with it so far.
Right, so I think we'll call it a day there. Not been stung through the suit. That doesn't mean that I'm never going to get stung through this suit. I will do regular updates on it, and I will give you an honest opinion if they do sting through it. But as of today, they've not stung through it, which is really good. Can't talk about like longevity or how well the suit's going to last. Does come with a two-year warranty though, which is really good. So if you get any broken zips or tears or anything like that, should be covered under the warranty.
And I know customer service down at Simon the Beekeeper is very, very good as well.
So there you go. If you want to win the jacket version of the new. Defender Series suits from Simon the Beekeeper. Like the video, stick a comment on it as well telling me which suit you're currently using at the moment.
