Over the years I have tried most new things in Beekeeping ...and have come to the conclusion that timber, wax and Stainless Steel ( for wire) is best accepted by my bees and I stick to it.
As a time-poor hobbyist who can't be bothered with spending hours of downtime and cleaning up the mess of, preserving and painting or watching stuff go rotten, the idea of plastic hives suits me.
Having seen wild hives which have voluntarily established themselves inside derelict car bodies, piles of tyres, 44 gallon drums and plastic compost bins, I think the bees will accept anything as long as it's reasonably weather-tight and sufficiently spacious.
I took delivery of a couple Nuplas hives this week - assembly took maybe 2 mins per box; the bases and lids are ready made, no assembly required and they are built like the proverbial brick sh-thouse, very robust.
They were a bit pricey, compared with buying timber components but by the time you price in the cost of paint, the time taken to paint them; [I'm self-employed with limited spare time, so unless it's something I actually enjoy doing, (I hate painting), then the hours spent painting are very costly to me] so I reckon that they are cost effective in the long term.
I'm sticking with timber/wire frames though. I enjoy making those up, wiring & embedding, so the above stricture doesn't apply.
