In this hands‑on review, Laurence Edwards introduces the Abelo Multiplex Hive, a wooden, modular beehive designed to simplify queen‑rearing and nuc management. He demonstrates the hive’s interlocking DN4 frames, which slide apart effortlessly, and contrasts the prototype frame with the final production version. The hive is constructed from pine (requiring paint or oil finish), topped with an aluminium‑zinc roof and a mesh board to keep bees out of the crown. Its core innovation is configurability: a single 6‑frame nuc can be re‑configured into two 3‑frame nucs or four separate 3‑frame nucs using removable divider boards, each with its own entrance. Four built‑in feeders sit on the top, and the current prototype lacks proper bee‑space on the crown, a shortcoming the designer plans to fix with additional battens to create top and bottom bee spaces. A ventilated disc functions as a queen excluder and can be sealed with melted beeswax to prevent mold. Entrances are simple T‑bars with hinges, and a landing board is provided. Edwards advises using low‑propolis bee strains (e.g., Buckfast) to avoid frames becoming glued together, and recommends coating interior wood with beeswax and exterior with oil‑based gloss. The first production units are expected in February–March 2025, with a Langstroth version slated for later release. Edwards concludes that the design is brilliant, needs minor tweaks, and could attract major UK beekeepers.
Chapters
This hive here is called the Multiplex Hive, and it's potentially going to change the way that people rear queens. Let me get inside though and show you why it's such a game changer. So this design here has been around for a little while but not available in the national format. And what you can see already, if I kind of hold it up to the camera there, what you can see is that it just connects together really, really nicely. And then when you want to pull it apart, it just slides apart like that. Super, super simple. So you effectively get one standard DN4 interlocking frame, and you can see there just how easy it is to kind of take that apart and put it back together. And then once the bees So if you propolize these frames a bit together, that bit there will be even more secure. But I'll show you now just how secure they are. Look at that. I'm throwing that all over the place and that's how much it's budged there. So the frames that I've got in here are the prototype version of the frame. And this one here, that is the final version of the frame. So that's exactly what it's gonna look like. Now you might be thinking, well, what's that gotta do with the multiplex hive? Let me get inside and show you just what this hive can do. So first thing you notice about this hive, first thing I noticed was how nicely it was built. It's made of pine, so you will want to paint it. And the heaviness issue with pine isn't really an issue with a mating hive 'cause it's only so small anyway. Aluminium zinc roof, which is nice, means that it's going to protect all of that standing water on the top. You get a mesh board like that just to kind of keep any bees from going in the top or sneaking their way in. That's actually quite a useful addition there. But then we get into the business end. So the first thing you see is on top, 4 separate feeders. But we will park that and we will come back to that in a little bit because we're not set up in a 4-nuc configuration yet. But that is what this nuc can do. It's a 6-frame nuc. It's 2 3-frame nucs, but it's also 4 3-frame nucs. And that is where the difference comes in in this hive. You effectively got one big nuc that you can turn into 4 mating nucs. Ah. So you can see on there now we've got the 6-frame configuration. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Now to turn this into the 2 3-frame configuration, you've just got a standard piece of ply there. Now you could change this out for some aluminium board, Or you could change it out for a bit of plastic board, something like that, if it starts to bend or bow or anything. So this is the prototype version that I've got here. They're going to make changes and stuff to it, but at the moment it's working well. I think once the bees start propolising it up, it might be a little bit more difficult to get it out, but depends on your bees. If you've got bees that kind of have loads of propolis, I wouldn't use these. I'd go for maybe a Buckfast bee that doesn't have anywhere near as much propolis, and then it should be fine. So as I said, super, super simple. You just move the 3 frames over like that. You take your 3-frame divider in. I was going to let it fall in there, just needed a little push, but there you go. You've got 2 3-frame variants. You've got an entrance at the front and an entrance at the back. So in its current configuration, very, very similar to the BS Honeybees 2-in-1 nuc, but what this hive gives you is the ability to split that through again and to get 4 3-frame nucs, which is absolutely perfect for rearing queens. So let me show you how you get to that. So you take out your divider board, you take out all of your frames like this. There are 2 separate little boards that just slide out of the edge there. Nice little groove at the bottom there so you can get your fingers underneath it. I love it. And then you just get some more of these boards here. They just slot straight in. And then the most beautiful part of it all is you can imagine once you've built up your colony on here, so this would be Foundation in here, foundation in there, the colony builds out, it gets nice and strong. So this isn't just going to be empty frames, this is going to be a frame of bees, a frame of brood. And then all you're going to do is you're just going to gently prise it apart and it will come together perfectly well. There'll be no bridging in the middle. And all you do is you just pop them in like that and you just continue your way along with all of the frames. That's the first 3-frame done there. There's the second one done. Third one. And then that's the fourth one done there. So super, super simple. You can see we've got the 4 nuc sections, so 1, 2, 3, 4, and then each of them have got their own entrance. So we've got an entrance on that side, entrance on that side, entrance on that side and then an entrance, I think there it is down there on that side. So then this is where the feeder comes really in handy because the problem that you've got at the moment with that is that you've not got the correct bee space on the top. So there's no bee space there. And if you just put that mesh board in there, you can see that the bees will be able to travel kind of from one section to the other. So by placing the feeder, and again, this is a prototype, they're just working with the bee spaces at the moment. But what this does is it effectively closes off each of those nucs. And my understanding is the next one is going to close it off Each one, but allow the bees to have that bee space underneath. I think that's the slight improvement that we need here. Really, really easy to fix as well. Just a few little battens on the top there, turning that into a top bee space as opposed to a bottom bee space. It will effectively have 2 bee spaces, one on the top, one on the bottom. But what that does is that it gives you this segregation. So nuc 1, nuc 2, nuc 3, nuc 4. And then what you can see is you've got this little spinny disc here. You've got it fully open, you've got it completely closed so nothing can get in but ventilated. And then you've got queen excluder function on it as well. And then what I would do with that is I would just fully coat the inside of that with melted beeswax to seal all of that wood so it doesn't go moldy in there. Also do an exterior oil-based gloss would work well in there as well. And then the ventilated screen just sits on the top like that. You've only got a few extra bits. You can see there's not loads and loads of bits to lose in here. And then the roof goes on top. So really, really simple. In terms of the entrance, again, even simpler. You've just got a little bit of T-bar there. And then some hinges, and then the bees can go in and out. So super easy to close it up when you want to transfer them round, keeps them in. And then you even get a little landing board as well, which I know people do like. So there we go, first look at the Multiplex Hive from Abelo. This is available to order now, but this one here is the prototype. The first ones are coming in in kind of like February, March 2025. I really, really like this. I think this is a brilliant design. There's a little bit more development that needs to be done on it, but I do think that you'll get some big players moving over to this system in the UK. And they're also bringing out a Langstroth version of this as well. So these frames here, they're DN4 Nationals with the clickable design. Brilliant design, absolutely love it. And Abello are developing a Langstroth version of that as well, which will suit absolutely everyone throughout the world, and it means that you can get involved in this very, very cool beehive.
