I purchased 3 BeeMax hives this 2015 season because of a friend of mine who uses them almost exclusively on his 80 hives.
I live in Western New York. Our winters in the Buffalo area are many times brutal with snow, cold temperatures and wind. My chief goal is for my bees to survive and thrive the winter.
My experience with my three BeeMax hives thus far is that I love them.
The PROS:
1) Easy to put together. No nails or screws.
2) No need for entrance reducer as the entrance is only the size of bee-space.
3) No need for mouse guard as entrance is only the size of bee-space.
4) Placing your ear on the hive body I can easily hear the bees legs pitter-patter and hum of the hive.
With wooden hives I have to strain my ears or use a stethoscope to hear anything. In the winter I don't like
banging on a hive to check their status.
The CONS:
1) Ok, IF your hive gets American/European Foul Brood then you can't burn them. That's IF.
NOTES:
1) I found out you do need to paint or put something on the hive to prevent outside mold. However, you have to do the same for wooden hives too.
2) This December I purchased and installed the Broodminder and am currently testing a wooden hive to check the internal temperature and relative humidity. I will also be installing a Broodminder in a Polystyrene hive. I've interested to know each hive which one is warmer so I want live numbers in the hive. The Broodminder will provide me hourly reading. I will share on this thread my results. If you want to know more about Broodminder:
http://broodminder.com/
3) I have 10 hives to overwinter into 2016. Wooden hive 7, Polystyrene 3. I'll share also how the BeeMax vs Wood hives are doing this spring.
4) In the 2016 BetterBee Catalog for $126 you can get "The Essentials Kit"
1 Telesoping Outer Cover
1 Wooden Inner Cover
2 Deep Hive Bodies
20 Plastic Frames
1 Bottom board
This is all I need because I still use wood for supers.
Dave