Which Poly Nuc is Best? Maisemore vs Paynes vs BS Honey Bees

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Now, I get asked this question a lot, and that question is, which poly nuc is the best? So in this video, I'm going to give you the lowdown, or my lowdown, on which poly nuc I think is the best. So we're going to do a comparison between 3 poly nucs. We're going to do Paynes, Maysmoor, and BS poly nucs. Right, so what we're going to do for this video is we're going to go through each of the 3 separate poly nucs. I'm going to tell you what I like about them, what I don't like about them, and then I'm going to do a comparison at the end and give you a conclusion. So the first one, you can't really see the writing, all of my nucs are quite old, but this is the Paynes Poly Nuc. Yeah, so it's a 6-frame poly nuc. Okay, so what do I like about the Paynes? I like that it comes with an integrated feeder. I don't necessarily like the feeder, but I like that you don't have to pay extra for the feeder. What's the feeder like? What else do I like about it? I like the fact that the bees overwinter quite well in these, but I think they overwinter well in all of my poly nucs, so there's nothing particularly special about the Payne's poly nuc in terms of its overwintering capability. One of the things I really do like about the Payne's poly nuc is that they come with a crown board, and it's just like a flimsy piece of plastic, but it works well as a crown board for a poly nuc like this. So yeah, I like that it comes with a crown board. Means that you can kind of keep things a little bit neater. Means that they don't stick the roof down. I like the fact that the mesh floor is quite big. I find in poly nucs that's quite helpful. Helps them to regulate their temperature in the winter. And then it's quite easy just to block that up with kind of a piece of Correx or something. Just slots in there over winter if I want to go to a solid floor option. Right, now what do I not like about the Payne's poly nuc? I don't like the feeder. So I know I said the first thing I like about it was the fact that you've got a feeder with it. All of them you get a feeder with. I'm really not a massive fan of this feeder at all. I like to feed fondant to my bees the majority of the time in nucs, and the fondant works okay in here, but when I come to try and feed syrup, I get drowning bees. And I appreciate there's ways around that. You can have, you can have sticks, you can have things to balance in there. I'm just not a massive fan of having the feeder offset to the side. I prefer to have it above the bees, especially when bees are in cluster over winter. If I've got a cluster in the center here and I'm trying to feed them fondant over here, they've got to travel over there to get it. So you can potentially have isolation feeding. Really not a massive fan of that. What else do I not like about it? So although it's built as a top bee space nuc, you've got a space below, but you've also got this space here above where the crown board sits on top. The crown board can sag a little bit and they propolise that down, so I don't like that. What I also don't like, and you can see it from this well-used nuc here, is that there's no lip on the runners, so the lugs of the frames sit directly on this lip here and they propolise it down. So you need to use your hive tool every time to get these frames out and you can damage the poly. Really, really not keen on that design. Right, what else don't I like about the Payne's poly nuc? So we've mentioned about the feeder being off to the side, and I don't like the location of the feeder, but I also don't like the fact that it results in an increased width of the hive. Means that it reduces the amount that I can get into the back of my truck and causes me issues. So I really don't like that. So I'm going through at the moment and cutting out all of my feeders, and I'm turning them into 8-frame poly nucs without a feeder. I think that's the best use for this box, and I genuinely think that's the best use for this box is that if you just cut out the feeder, I'll do a separate video showing you exactly how to do that and converting it into an 8-frame poly nuc, and then that's a really nice overwintering format. I find the bees do work well in that format. So that's about it. Like, all of these nucs here, there's not a huge amount in between them. There's bits I like, there's bits I don't like. I haven't found a perfect product yet, but I would use all of them and continue to use all of them within my apiary. So there you go, that's a bit of a snapshot of what I feel about the Payne's Polynuc. Right, next on the list is the Mazemore Polynuc, and you have to excuse this feeder. This is the only one that I've got that's not on a colony at the moment, so I didn't want to disturb them. That's squirrel damage, so don't let that detract you from the Mazemore. All of them are susceptible to squirrel damage if you leave them accessible and there's fondant or anything nice and tasty in there for them. That's the result, so watch out for squirrels. So that's, that's the Maysmore one. These are the first poly nucs that I bought, and, and they're good. I like, I like the Maysmore poly nucs. Um, again, same with the Paynes, there's things I like about them, there's things I don't like about them. So let's just run through that one by one. So in terms of the actual 6-frame box, there's no difference to the Paynes in my opinion. You've still got like 100 grams per liter of poly. It's solid, entrance at the front, mesh floor at the bottom that you can block up if you need to just with a bit of wood or a bit of Correx. Really, really standard design, so pretty good kind of in terms of a generic overwintering aspect. What it has got over the Panes though is that it has this lip. So it's a bottom bee space nuc, so it's not quite— it's not quite bottom bee space, you get a little bit of distance between this and the roof, so they don't glue the roof down, but there's not a full bee space, so it is affect a bottom B-Space roof. But what it does have is it has the lips. So along there where the lugs sit, you don't need to break it open every time with your hive tool, which protects this face here. So that's a really, really good positive that it has. Its width is considerably smaller than the Panes. So if you hold the 2 up side by side like that, you can see, I mean, they're identical apart from the fact that the Panes has got the Poly feeder on the side, whereas the Mazemore doesn't have that. And in my view, that means the Mazemore is better. It means I can get so many more of these in my truck, and it means that when I'm putting the feeder on, I can direct that feed over the top of the colony, which I believe results in superior overwintering performance. So I really, really like the top-style feeder. Let's move on to the feeder. So as you can see, it's completely battered, this feeder. Squirrels got into it, but normally what you would get is a central entrance slot there where the bees come up. You have a Perspex lid that sits in there, and then you fill this side with syrup and you fill this side with syrup. So ignore all the holes where the squirrels have chewed through it all. And as a top feeder, it works well. Like, it is a good, effective top feeder. You can get a decent amount of syrup in there. So I think it works well. It's a good top feeder. What it doesn't have, and this is, you'll see this when we move on to the next poly feeder from BS Honeybees, is it doesn't have a plug to be able to feed fondant. And I find all the time I need the ability to be able to feed my bees fondant in the winter, especially in poly nucs. So what I did was I modded it. So I had to cut out a hole here with just like a little drill, and then I used this side for feeding fondant and I used this side for feeding syrup, which was good and it worked, but it meant that I was limited to kind of like a litre of syrup at a time as opposed to being able to use both sides. So putting that hole in gave me the ability to feed fondant, but it took away the fact that I couldn't use as much syrup. Now finally we move on to the roof, and this is the weak point in terms of the Mazzees product in my view. It's incredibly thin, like even from that side there it's only about 45mm, but then you look inside and you've probably only got kind of like 20mm of actual meat within the poly. So it's not doing the best job in terms of insulation. They warp really, really easily. Um, so yeah, they work as like a barrier to keep rain off, but it's not much more than that. So really not a massive fan of the Mazzees roof. So at this point, it's worth pointing out that a couple of the issues that I've highlighted are only applicable to the older style. So on the Maisie's ones now, they do a deep roof, so they've addressed that issue and they do a roof. And the roof that comes with it now is about 100mm deep and it has a cavity in the middle so you can feed fondant. So all you would do in that instance is you would take the feeder off and you would put this roof on and you can feed the fondant. So I really when manufacturers do that and they look and take feedback from beekeepers and make their product better, as opposed to blindly saying, no, you get what you're given, our product's fine. So well done for Maisies for kind of looking at that and resolving that problem. It really does eliminate the issues that I found in the previous versions, the versions that I'm reviewing today. So at some point I'll have to get my hands on the latest products and do, do an updated review. But like I say, this is not an issue if you buy it from Maisies now, it comes with a deeper roof. Same with the Paynes ones. So what they offer now is a top feeder. So you have to buy it, so it's extra and it adds to the cost, but they offer that option now so you can have a top feeder on a Paynes Poly Nuc. So the big issue with the side feeder, you can take that away, cut it out, make it 8 frames, put a top feeder on, and then I think you've got a really excellent product. Costs a little bit more though. So then we're on to the final product that we're reviewing today, and that is the BS BS Honeybees Polynuc. Now this has got a few really nice features in it, and there's a couple of bits that I don't like as well. So let's run through first of all the good things about this product. So what I really like is it's got 2 entrances. So you've got an entrance on this side and you've got an entrance on that side. So the reason for that, the reason for that is that there's a central divider There's a central divider that stores nicely in there, that fits in there, and effectively turns this product into 2 3-frame nucs. So I loved the theory behind that. Do a lot of queen rearing, do a lot of small splits and build it up. To get them into three frames, I really really like that. In practice, I'm just not a massive fan of this. This Corex divider, I don't think works very well, and I've covered this in previous videos. So what I've done now is I've either got rid of these and used them as just six frame boxes, for which they're really still very good, or I've got plywood versions of these that I slot in. Now I understand BS Honeybees as well are doing the same thing. They're modifying these boxes. They're taking on this feedback, and they're coming out with an improved Correx divider. So an improved divider that's not the Correx to improve this nuc. But ultimately, I mean, that's what you're looking at. You've got 2 entrances, one on either side, and then a Correx divider that sits in the middle. So you can use it as 2 3-frame nucs or one 6-frame nuc. So then the first thing you notice when you get one of these in your hand is that they are significantly more solid than either of the, the Pains or the Maizmor. They're done with 120 grams of poly per liter as opposed to 100 grams of poly per liter, and you can really feel the difference. It's got an additional 20% kind of mass within the same volume, and that results in a slightly lesser insulation quality, but pretty much negligible, but much, much more hard-wearing. No kind of fraying, no little bits of poly coming off, and it's just a lot more solid all round. That's a big plus for me, and that's the reason I buy a lot of these boxes. So again, they have the lip on the frames there. So these lips, they have— so where the frame rests are, they have lips. That means that the frames don't get propolised down to them. You can get them out without a hive tool. You have your varroa mesh at the bottom. A little bit more difficult to block that up in winter, but it's still not too bad. I find myself just screwing a piece of ply or a piece of kind of anything solid over there, Sometimes use the Correx dividers to do that, just to block them up over winter. Now this one again, this is a true top bee space nuc. I find the top bee space one's much, much superior to the bottom bee space. Just means you're not crushing bees, makes everything a lot easier. I really do like top bee space. So then moving on to the feeder, and this is my favourite feeder of the 3 without a doubt. So it comes with— you normally get Perspex strips that fit in there, The bees come up the outside on both sides and then access down into this central reservoir in the middle. Now this reservoir you can fill with syrup, and as you can see, takes a lot of syrup, at least 3 litres in there. But also, and the big benefit, is that it comes with a silicone plug, and the silicone plug fits in this hole there. You obviously have to put it in from that side, what with the taper, but it means that you can take the plug out And you can stick a slab of fondant on like that. And I find on the poly nucs, that is the best way of feeding them. The best way of ensuring that they get through the winter is that you put that slab of fondant directly above the cluster. All they've got is a little hole above them. They won't access it unless they need it, but if they need it, it's there, it's accessible. And then if you want to feed them syrup later on in the season, they've probably eaten the fondant by then, but if they haven't, you just take the fondant out, pop the plug back in, and that gives you a watertight seal, and then you can move back to syrup feeding. So you're not sacrificing anything by cutting holes in the, the old version of the Mazemore. You're not trying to scrape out fondant from the Payne's Poly Feeder, which is a bit of a faff unless the bees use it. They can sometimes go and draw comb in there, really, really annoying. This feeder, I do think it is kind of a market leader at the moment. Very, very happy with this feeder, definitely my favourite. And then the roof, like, it looks solid from there. It's not quite as solid as it looks, but I'd say it's at least double the thickness of the Maisies' and the Paynes' roof. Absolutely solid, tons of insulation where you want it, directly above the colony, reduces any of that condensation dripping down directly onto the cluster. It's a very, very good roof. These all look a bit bad because they were originally painted with masonry paint And then I went over them with spray paint and it didn't work. So I'm just waiting for them to kind of go back to their natural state and then I'll spray paint them again and then it'll bond with the poly a lot better. So don't worry about any of the kind of paint peeling off on these. These are all pretty much my reject ones, ones that aren't in use, the absolute worst of my bunch at the moment, and they're just the ones that don't have bees in. So that's why I'm doing the review with them. Right, so that's a bit of a summary then of the 3 poly nucs that we're reviewing today. So we've got the Payne's poly nuc, The Mazemore Polynuke and the BS Polynuke. Now, if you had to say to me I could only have one going forward, I'd pick the BS Polynuke. It's as simple as that. That is my favourite Polynuke out of the 3. The fact is though, I've got all of them and I will continue to use all of them because they're all really, really good products. And some of them are better than others, some of them make my life easier than others, and if I was going to go into the market to choose one, I would pick the BS Honeybees Poly Nuc at this moment in time. The fact that Payne's have brought out that top feeder though gives you an incredibly good in-between option in terms of you can have an 8-frame nuc with a top feeder. So there's nothing else like that on the market. I think that's a really, really good product, and I think nucs, colonies would overwinter exceptionally well in that configuration. Um, the Mazemore, I mean, they've advanced the design a lot by putting in that, uh, extended roof for feeding fondant. I'm gonna have to buy a couple more of them and have a look at them, but I think that's a really, really good product again. What I will say about the Mazemore though is that the price has gone up like a ridiculous amount since I started buying poly boxes. I seem to remember buying them and they were either a shade under £20 or a shade over £20, and they've gone up at least 50% by now. So the reason I bought them in the first place is that they were the cheapest box, and now they're kind of competing at the higher end of the market. And I think that the other boxes competing at that end of the market are potentially a better bet for that amount of money. So like I say, if you asked me and money wasn't an option, which box would you go for? I'd go with the BS Honeybees 2-in-1 nuc at the moment. That's my favourite one. Will I sell my Paynes boxes? Will I sell my Maysmore boxes? No, because they're absolutely fine and I've got years of service left in them and they do a job and there's no problem with them whatsoever. So the final thing to say is there's one glaring omission from this list and that is the new Abello Polynuc. Now please don't kind of criticize me for trying to advertise Abello again. You see, I've given all of these guys a kind of fair crack of the whip, but Abello are bringing out a new Polynuc in the near future. And I've yet to see it yet. I've yet to get my hands on it, so I'll completely reserve judgment. But looking at it, it looks quite cool. It's completely modular and you can use it as a hive. So that's all I know is that it's a modular system. So you have a separate floor, separate brood box, crown board, and then a feeder and a roof. And you can kind of mix and match different boxes, queen excluders, all that good stuff. So it's a very different take on the market. I know Maysmore do some of the modular stuff. but not so much into using it as a system. So I'm really, really intrigued. As soon as I get my hands on a copy of the Abello Polynuc, I will do a separate review on that one. So in conclusion, if you're in the market for a Payne's box, a Mazy's box, or a BS Honeybees box, I would say go with the cheapest. They're all much of a muchness. If they were all the same price, I'd go with the BS Honeybees box. That is my favourite box at the moment, and that is kind of predominantly what I use within my apiaries at this moment in time. Whether the Abelo coming out would change that, like I say, I'll wait and reserve judgment on that one. So I hope you've enjoyed this video. This question's been asked to me loads of times, what poly nucs box should I get? The final thing to say is there's nothing wrong with wooden nuc boxes. Nothing wrong with them at all. I just prefer to use poly. That's the way it is up in North Wales. That's what I find works, and they're a lot cheaper. So as always with me, comes down to the price and the whole life cost of the item. So that's it for the video. Please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.