Paradise beebox hive

[gwizzie]

Never worked with the MB/paradise boxes but it's a system that looks decent enough. I know someone who uses them and they seem pretty happy with them - they haven't voiced any complaints about them within my hearing anyway. But....I have no experience with them so I'll defer to those who actually do.

The full sized Paynes hives are a different matter - those I do have experience of. I bought 4 in one of their crimbo sales a few years back. In use as long as you don't have to move them they're ok. There's enough room at the end of the lugs, the bee space is ok. But......the poly is a bit soft, the floor has a large landing board which sticks out and makes moving them a problem, the floor and BB have little corner lug things that interlock and are a pain (payne?) in the ass, the roof is a tight fit, they have a bigger footprint than wooden kit so are not interchangeable although you can get away with using wooden supers if you switch the roof for a standard wooden one (I guess in theory you could still use the poly roof but it'd have a big overlap). All that aside they're perfectly useable but I won't be buying any more.

If you're going down the poly route probably the best option are the Swienty hives. They have the same footprint as wooden kit so you can mix and match no problem - this alone makes them the best option imho. The floor is flush with no landing board. There's enough room at the end of the lugs. Bee space is good. No frame runners but a bit of judicious smoke and some care will leave few casualties when replacing frames.

All of the aforementioned relates to Nationals btw.

Having said all that I'm not convinced that poly gains you a whole helluva lot over wooden kit when we're talking about full sized colonies. Nuc sized colonies are a different matter and I think the ubiquitous Paynes poly nuc is a superb bit of kit for those summer and winter.

Pretty sure I've said all of this before in the poly hive thread but hey ho!

Hi drumgerry,

thank you for your comments and insight into the Paynes hives, I think that hearing what you have said about them I will stay clear of them and stick with the beebox ones as for now as I have said in this thread I am very happy with them so far, just not happy with the feeder that you can get for them (losing too many bees)

I attended a local bee meeting tonight and the member had WBC hives and they were packed with propolis and she had bother getting the frames out, so im not that bothered about using the beebox ones, as I have come to the conclusion that if they're that bad the poly hive will have more give in it than a wooden one!

I have got 2 paynes poly nucs and will be making the mod to remove the feeder and making them into 8 framed nucs, as I prefer using rapid feeders.

again thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread