UK EXCLUSIVE - UPGRADED - BS HONEY BEES 2 IN 1 NUC REVIEW/GIVEAWAY

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. I've got a UK exclusive video for you today, and that is a review of the brand new features of the BS Honeybees 2-in-1 poly nuc. So thanks very much to BS Honeybees for sending me this poly nuc. They've sent it to me free of charge. I'm not paid for the review, but I'm going to give you my honest feedback and recommendations for this product. And I'm also going to give this nuc here away to one lucky subscriber to my channel. So stay tuned to the end of the video to find out how you can win the BS Honeybees 2-in-1 Poly Nuc. So I've reviewed this product before, and as you'll see from the previous video, I really, really like the BS Honeybees 2-in-1 Poly Nuc. It's a great nucleus with some really good features, but there was one thing that really irritated me about it, and I picked that up in the previous video, and that was the Correx divider. Now there's nothing I like more while doing these videos than picking up issues, talking to manufacturers, and then manufacturers going away and fixing those issues. And that is exactly what BS Honeybees have done here. They have taken on board all of the feedback that I've given, that other people have given. Many people have given this feedback to them saying that the dividers weren't fit for purpose. Other people have actually given other feedback as well, and they've come back and improved this product in every single one of those areas. So much so that this is without a doubt one of the very best poly nucs available on the market. So in this video, I'm going to give you a full top-to-bottom review of all of the brand new features of this product, and I'll cover all of the existing features as well. That means we're going to cover every single feature in this video. We'll talk about the roof, the feeder, the fondant slot, the runners, the boxes, the entrances, the boards, and the dividers. We'll cover every single feature, give you a nice close-up of them so you can see how much they've improved this box. So first thing to say, as we say with all the poly nukes that we review, this one here comes unpainted. That's my personal preference. I like it when they do come unpainted. Means that I can give them a coat of paint in the color that I choose. Also means if I'm doing it with a spray paint, it's going to bond really nicely to the poly. I'd recommend if you get one of these or if you win it in our competition, give it a really nice coat, either exterior gloss or a spray paint, or if you want to use a masonry paint, that's fine as well. Other thing to say is the poly density of the BS Honeybees 2-in-1 poly nuc slightly more than some of the others on the market, and it's one of the reasons that I really do like this. Just a little bit harder than all of the rest of them, 120g per liter as opposed to 100g per liter density. So you got about 20% increase in density, and you don't lose a huge amount in terms of loss of insulation. So it's definitely my preferred density on the poly nuc market. So first thing you notice when you pick up the roof is it's a really solid roof, and one of the things you might notice with this is that there's no depth in the roof whatsoever, and that is because you can't feed fondant just using this roof. So all of the other polyhives on the market, whenever I'm reviewing them, I look at some way of how am I going to feed fondant to my bees. I find nucleus colonies, they really do need a bit of fondant to keep them going, and I like to be able to feed that directly on the top bars. Now you can't do that on the BS Poly Nuc roof because they've integrated that function into the feeder. So we'll cover that in the feeder, but it really is a nice neat design to be able to feed fondant directly to your bees. So in terms of the roof though, you've got your 4 feet stands on there. That means that they stack up really nicely. You can get a little bit of water pooling in there, same with the branding on the top, but for me it's really not a big issue. But a really nice solid roof, and even on the thinnest bit there, you're probably talking about 40mm of polystyrene. So you've got lots of polystyrene on the top, Nice insulative material just where you need it on top of the winter cluster. You've got a standard rebate design all the way around the edge, and on the bottom there you've got a groove that can take the divider that goes down the middle. And that's really important if you're using this without any of the other stuff, so the feeder or the board, and you just want to put the roof directly on. That groove there gives you a really nice seal to stop the 2 colonies transferring over between that divider. So the roof, no major change from the previous version, but But a solid roof. So then we move on to the feeder, and again, there's no major change to the feeder. It's exactly the same as the feeder that I really, really liked in the previous version. It's a poly miller feeder with 2 slots on either side. And the reason for the 2 slots is the way that the 2-in-1 poly nuc works is you can have a colony on one side, colony on the other side, and then you've got this integrated feeder where they can both access a single pool of syrup whilst keeping the 2 colonies separate. So that's the reason for the design. A lot of the poly nuc feeders you see on the market, you might have a slit on one side there and they access the feeder, like the one available from Thorns or the Maize Mill one. You have a slit down the middle and then all the bees come up through the middle, whereas the BS1 is clearly designed to work with the 2-in-1 design of the box. Really nice amount of syrup feed that you can get in there, probably up to 3 litres at a time. I don't find you need to feed any more than what you can in this feeder. Now what this feeder has though, and it's not available on any other Polynuc in the market is this silicone plug, and it's such a nice, neat, simple design. So it's really hard-wearing silicone. I've had a few of these for about 3 years now, and there's no damage to them whatsoever. And what they're for is to plug the feeder when you're using it for syrup, and then what you can do is you can take that plug out, and it gives you a hole over the colony there. And what you can do then is you can feed fondant to your colony over winter. Now all I will say is just to note you can't feed the fondant to 2 of the 3 splits over winter. So I don't overwinter these colonies as 2 separate 3s. I always overwinter them as a 6, as a single colony, and you've just got the single hole for fondant feeding. Now I think it would be quite difficult to work this to have 2 separate holes. Maybe they'll do it in a later iteration, but it's not something that I think is essential. I think the product is perfect as it is now. So then underneath the feeder you've got 4 entrance slots that lead up to those entrance feeders. You've got your circle in the middle, which is your fondant plug, and then you've got your groove again that works with the dividers in there to give you a nice tight seal to stop the bees moving over that divider. Now, at this moment in time, I will say I'm not sure how BS Honeybees are going to package this up in terms of what comes as standard with the boxes as they sell them and what doesn't come as standard, if they're going to do it as an upgrade kit or they're going to do it as optional extras. BS Honeybees will surely put some promotional stuff out soon to let you know how they're going to cut and carve up all of the additional extras that I'm talking about here. I'm just going to show you through the function and the feature of all of these new additions. So the first new addition that comes with this product, or is available as part of an upgrade pack, is a clear plastic polycarbonate sheet. So it's a flexible sheet and it works in conjunction with a top Beespace hive. So you can just put this on the top and then you can see your bees through it. If you want to, you can check up on them over winter. Now you might think there's a bit of a problem with a polycarbonate sheet. How are they going to access the feeder? And then if you're going to want to feed fondant, you're going to have to start taking off the polycarbonate sheet, putting the feeder back on, and then feeding fondant. And it might be a real kind of issue doing that midwinter. You don't want to disrupt the bees. So BS Honeybees have come up with 2 really, really nice additions to this polycarbonate sheet. The first one is the way they've cut out the circle there. So if you just wanna use this polycarbonate sheet as a cover board and you have no interest in ever feeding fondant to your bees, you've effectively got a solid cover board there. They've cut out the groove for the circle in the middle, so if you do want to take the circle out, you don't need to kind of guess and try and cut it yourself. It just pops out. You just get a knife in there and just cut through the little tiny slots, that will pop out for you. So you can effectively have that on top of your bees like that, with the hole cut out, the feeder put on the top, and then the bees can access up and down. And then also you can take the feeder off and check on the bees without them going everywhere. So it's a really nice neat design. The second thing they've done, and somebody actually came to me and said, I've got a real issue with this, and I have to say I've never experienced it personally, was that they had a queen going up through the entrance slots and drowning in the feeder. Now I can see how that could have happened. Personally, it never happened to me, but BS Honeybees have taken that on board and they've introduced queen excluder slots, so it eliminates the possibility of the queen going up into the feeder and drowning. And I love stuff like that. It's a really small design change for them and it completely eliminates the problem. So with this board, they've not just said, right, we're just going to chuck in a polycarbonate board. They've really had a good think about it and seen how many issues they can eliminate and how they can get this board to add additional benefit, which is being able to see your bees in winter without them flying up, whilst not impacting on any of the features like the fondant feeding in the feeder. So like I said, I'm not sure whether this comes with the BS Poly Nuc hives going forward, whether it's an upgrade kit, but these will be available very, very soon. And I have to say, really, really like the design of them. So this version of the nuc that they sent me here, this is the 14x12 version. So I've not actually had one of these off BS Honeybees before. I use the standard national version. All that is though very similar to the Maysmore product, but it actually comes with the bee spacing correct. So if you're using a 14 by 12 format and you want to get the 14 by 12 hive, I would highly recommend getting this direct from BS Honeybees because you get the runners in the correct position and you get the correct frame spacing. Right, for the purpose of this review though, we're just going to treat this as a national hive and I'll run through all the features of that just to keep the review nice and simple. So as I said there previously, this hive is a top Bee Space Hive. That means you keep your frames about 7 or 8mm down from the top point of this surface here, and you have your bee space on the top. So that means it works with a flat polycarbonate cover, and it can dip down a little bit. But again, BS Honeybees have come up with a solution for that, and where they put the divider in there, the divider sits a little bit higher, keeps everything nice and off the frames, which means they're not going to propolise it down, keeps everything nice and neat. Now the frame runners on the inside are exactly the same as the previous version. A top B-Space design, and it's an integrated poly runner. Now I know some people got issues with integrated poly runner, say that it can damage quite easily. I've run these for years and I've never had any damage whatsoever. You can put a little bit of Vaseline on there as well if you're too worried about it, or you could reinforce that with some sort of plastic, but personally I wouldn't bother. I think that's absolutely fine, and there's no issues with any damage to the poly on an integrated poly runner like that. So it's a 6-frame poly nuc, which is always my preference over the 5-frame versions, and you've got a little bit of extra space in there which helps with the divider. So as you can see here, if you put this polycarbonate frame on the top like that without the divider in, it actually supports itself really, really well. I'm quite surprised how, how well that supports itself. It's maintaining that frame spacing, that top bee space, all the way over the top. And if you push it down a little bit and it might start to deform, they'll start to bring that down. but the divider does prop it up, so you've got no issues with this whatsoever. So I think this top polycarbonate flimsy board works really, really well on the top bee space design. Now, onto the big, big design change, and this is the area that I really want to focus on. Now, the previous iteration of this Polynuc, in my opinion, had one major flaw, and that was the Correx divider that came with it. It wasn't immediately obvious that there was an issue with it, but it just wasn't strong enough to push through all of the grime, that gets collected in these grooves. So after you use it for a few nucs, you get propolis in there, you get wax in there, you get dead bees, and you just couldn't get the force on the Correx divider to push all of that out the way. So it ended up sitting proud above the box, and to be honest, it was a real, real nuisance. I don't think it worked very well at all, and I just used all of my boxes as 6-frame nucs. And for 6-frame nucs, they were absolutely fine. But these are 2-in-1 Polynucs. I really wanted that functionality to be able to use them as a 2x3 frame system. So this has been long awaited from BS Honeybees. I know they've been working on this a long time, and the reason that it's taken so long is obviously due to COVID, but also because they've been testing so many different products to make sure that they get this right. And I have to say, I've not done a full product review of this yet because it literally got delivered about an hour ago. But this is rock solid. It's so, so strong. You've got additional depth in these areas here, and there's literally no flex in it whatsoever. So it's a composite material. It's aluminium on one side, aluminium on the other side, and then a really strong plastic material in the middle. And believe me, it's so rigid and strong. So this composite divider slots down into the middle and separates those 2 boxes. Into 2 separate 3-frame compartments. Now, when I was speaking to the guys at BS Honeybees and talking to them about my issues with the product and the Correx divider, I didn't even think about this polycarbonate sheet, and I didn't think that I needed it, and I didn't think that it was going to be a great addition when they said to me. But having played with this for a couple of hours and put that onto the Correx divider, I've realized that the 2 of them work so well hand in hand. You've got the Correx divider down the middle there that props up the polycarbonate sheet, which means that you're not going to get any propolising down, hopefully, of this board onto the frames. But also you've got a perfect solution in order to stop the mingling of the 2 colonies because you've got that board on top. So what you can do is push it over to one side like that. It's top bee space, so you can just run it straight across the bees like that, and then you can work in this area here and pull your frames out. And none of the bees are going to get over because you pretty much sealed them in. And then the same when you want to come on this side, you just slide it back over and then you can work on this side. And it means that you can just keep those colonies completely separate. So I'm going to run with this this year. I'm giving this one away, so one of you guys is going to have this exact model here. I'm going to buy another 80 of these because I'm giving out all my nucs. I need a big fresh stock of nucs to see me through the year. So this is going to be my nuc of choice for this year. to buy loads of these and I'm going to run them and I'll do some full product testing on them. But I have to say, just the way that these 2 pieces work together, that polycarbonate crown board with the queen excluder holes, the fondant hole cutout, the fact that it sits on that divider so well in a top beast base design— really, really well done to the guys at BS Honeybees. They've put a lot of work into this design and I think they're on to a winner. Just to make it clear, the 14x12 eke that comes with it, it It comes with its own separate divider. So if you order the 14x12 version from them, you get a 14x12 divider. And thanks very much, BS Honeybees, they sent me both so I can show you in the video. That's the standard national divider, and then that is the 14x12 divider there. It's massive, but as you can see, there's no flex in it whatsoever. Rock solid. That is so different to the Corex divider. And I know I'm paying a lot of attention to this, but this is for me the big, big design change that warrants this re-review. And the subscriber giveaway. Right, so no major change to the floor. In fact, no change at all to the floor. You've got 2 strips of Varroa mesh and they're divided by a polystyrene strip in the middle. Obviously that's just to kind of keep the colonies separate, and that works really, really well. You've got 4 feet at the bottom, and personally I have no issue with the feet at all. I know BS Honeybees have looked at various different ways of doing something with the feet, but I do not think there's an issue there at all. I've looked at other poly nucs that do have issues with stability, but no, no issues whatsoever. Don't think there's any issue with the feet, and that's the feet that I would stick with. Right, so you might have made a bit of a key observation so far, is that I haven't put the nuc discs on the front. So as always, you get 2 nuc entrances with this hive, one for the front, one for the back, and they're just standard nuc entrances, one for ventilation, one for open, one for closed, one for queen excluder. So they just pop on like that, and you can do your thing, turn it round, Absolutely fine. Now personally for me, this is what I'm going to use on my versions of these boxes when I get them. I really like the Nuc Disc entrance. I think it works fine, nice and cheap, and it's really, really effective. But Stuart York has almost certainly been on the phone to the guys at BS Honeybees or some of you other guys out there because they have redesigned the entrance. And like I said, I do not know how they're going to cut and carve this up, Whether this new designed entrance is going to be the standard, or they're going to give you the nuke disc entrance as a standard, and this is going to be an upgrade. Not sure, but all I know is that they have developed Stuart York. Wait for it: a landing board for the BS Honeybees nuke. Now personally, I'm not too fussed about this. Like I like the design, and I do think it's cool. And if you're the kind of person like Stuart who absolutely loves your landing boards, and I'm coming to believe now that's quite a lot of people, and maybe I'm the one who's wrong. And maybe I should look for things with landing boards on as well. But if you're the kind of person that likes a landing board, BS Honeybees have produced this for you. So like I said, I don't know how that's going to work, whether that's going to come as standard. I think it's probably not going to come as standard. I think the nuc disc is going to come as standard and that's going to be an optional extra. But it's really nice to know that they've gone and put the effort in to design something to meet the needs of beekeepers who want a landing board. Right, so that's it for the review. In summary, what a fantastic poly nuc design this is. It's really, really good, and I just, I just love it when manufacturers take on board the feedback, constructive criticism, go away and improve their product, because that's how we move forward in beekeeping, to come up with a product that everyone can use. And then when more people use it, the cost of production can go down or at least stay the same. So personal thanks to Dan for sending me this box free of charge to review. Like I said, I'm not paid for this review. All I've been given is this box here And I'm going to give this box away to a subscriber on my channel. So it's probably going to cost me a little bit to do this, run this competition, to send the box to whoever it is. But I do appreciate all the support from you guys on the channel, so I like to do a few giveaways every now and again. But in summary, I really do think this is a fantastic nuc. The additions that they've put into this product— so the composite divider, vast improvement of what it was before. The polycarbonate board with the hole cut out And the queen excluder cutout, really nice addition on its own, but really nice combination with that composite divider. And then for me, the entrance on the front is the icing on the cake. Personally, I don't think that's something that I'll use, but I know that a lot of people out there do like a landing board entrance. And now you can have a landing board entrance with one of the best poly nucs on the market. Right, so onto the important stuff then. And you want to know how you can win this poly nuc. So this competition is going to run for a little while. Feel a little bit mean sending this out. This is the prototype, so we're going to time it with the actual official launch of the product, which is yet to be confirmed. But all you have to do to enter this competition, like the video, stick a comment as to why you want to use this Polynuke. It's as simple as that. And then what I'll do is I'll speak to the guys down at BS Honeybees, and then as they're launching the new stock, so when they've got everything in stock, they've got all of the models available for sale, we'll do a draw and we'll send it out to a lucky winner of the channel. So I hope you enjoyed the review. I hope you enjoyed the in-depth look into the BS Honeybees Poly Nuc, and I hope you'll hit that like button and comment so you're included in the draw. So 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.