Some poly boxes are hopelessly inadequate for purpose and are made with material that is too soft just to get on the bandwagon and extract some cash from the unsuspecting or inexperienced, or even just from sheer ignorance on the manufacturers behalf.
If the material is at all soft don't buy it. Rodents love to chew it up and wasps can just drill through it in no time.
Also responding to prakel.....its precisely in winter that we get a major benefit, with our losses in poly being negligible. Also they outperform the wooden hives at the heather as they carry on breeding full pelt for a little longer than the wooden hives do and we have more bee power in the latter part of a normal heather season. In any given year about 7 of our top 10 places will be poly, and the average at the heather will run at about 8lb per colony higher (Its not that simple either as there will be more colonies in poly above the spring count than in wood, so the truth will be more like 10 or 12 lb more per spring colony than in wood). Even at 8lb in bulk that's an uplift of over £26 per hive, per season, on average........so not long to pay for any perceived failings or lack of durability of poly (not the case anyway). My worst ever rodent damage was a rat attack and they went in through the floors and fronts of wooden hives and ate the whole contents out of over 20 hives, boxes etc all destroyed.
Over the 16 years now of our poly unit I doubt the attrition rate will exceed 3% of all the gear we ever bought. Say 15 years at 25 pounds cash extra per year per colony.....£375.......against about 3% attrition on gear in total.....hive carcase of 4 boxes, roof floor and feeder costs me about 64 pounds......so about £2............its a no brainer. You could lose the lot every 4 years on average and still be ahead, yet they are every bit as durable as the wood.
A bit of rodent damage is a pest for sure, and causes frustration, but it works economically.
and to Philip....sorry...I said GOOD grade...not FOOD grade gloss. Also..if you put too much thinners into the paint and/or use very light and soft poly (like most soft packaging grades) then yes, it can do some poly melting. However, on the correct grade of both poly and paint this is actually the very property that makes the bond. A tiny...microscopic.... amount of the poly does dissolve and mix with the paint and pretty well welds the paint to the material. Done correctly this is not even visible to the naked eye.
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