Rowlinson Beehive Composter

Ordered this after a fair amount of consideration. It arrived today in two packs. Lid already constructed in one and other parts in other pack. Very easy to put together. In the main the parts slot into each other and then you have to use a screw driver just to attach the hinges to the main compost bin, they are already attached to the lid. We chose this compost bin because the wood was pressure treated, i.e tannelised. This compost bin looks good in the garden and I am hopeful it will perform well, only time will tell. Better than a big plastic cone with no aeration. So far more than happy.

Overall very pleased with this. Arrived very promptly, well wrapped although the wood was sweating a bit. It went together fairly easily, although one piece of wood was split in half (hence 4 stars) soon repaired with some wood glue. It looks lovely in the garden

Love the look of this composter, simple to put together, solid. Highly recommend.

The finished product - once constructed and stained - is very good. However, the wood had clearly been improperly stored as many panels are turning green and most of the wood was wet. Several have also distorted, making construction difficult and the lid doesn't fit properly.This is the nicest looking composter I have seen, but I wouldn't consider what was delivered to be high quality.

Have just completed the task of putting this Beehive Composter together, so can't comment yet on how it performs as a composter. However, in terms of construction and appearance a few remarks are possible.It looks fantastic and so much better than the plastic one that we are currently using. It's a visual asset to the garden. The capacity is greater than I expected and is likely to be more than adequate for our needs.A bit of caution is required in putting it together. It took me a couple of hours and was pretty straightforward. The instructions were clear. However, the slats are a tight fit and I used a rubber mallet (gently) to firm them in place. But you need to take care, as this is not hard wood and will break with too much force. Also, there is a ridge panel at the top which is extremely soft wood and splits easily using the screws provided.But otherwise, first rate. Might comment later on how good it is as a composter.

This beehive composter arrived yesterday. I managed to put this together myself and I am getting on a bit! It looks really great.. I am going to paint it white to fit in with my garden colour scheme. I laid all the parts out first and worked out what went where before assembling the compost bin. It took me a couple of hours to get it all put together but I found it straightforward to assemble.

Excellent structure and very easy to put together. Bought one last year and it's so good I got another the same a year on. Would highly recommend.

One of the small logs at the bottom buckled and the notch snapped under the weight so is now the whole thing is unstable. The wood had green mould on it when it arrived so it didn't take much. I am not expecting this composter to last very long before it becomes compost itself!

I bought this because I was looking for a smallish attractive composter, and had come across the "beehive" style on many UK websites. This, however, was literally the only one of that type I could find available in the US. In retrospect, I should have just had a handyman/carpenter build me one from the plans I found online - it would not have been much more expensive in the end and I would have ended up with a much better product. I am not the handiest person, but am quite good at assembling IKEA-type furniture and the like...but I could not get this put together to save my life and finally gave up after a few hours of trying. It seems like it should be so simple - the pieces just slot into each other, Lincoln Logs-like - but some of the wood notches simply were not placed to be able to fit the pieces that were supposed to slot into them - I ultimately had to hire a handyman to assemble and enlarge some of them. My handyman was also not able to get the lid to assemble facing the same direction as the slot to remove compost - so the lid opens to the side and the compost slot is at the front. In addition, he had to cut down one of the bottom wood pieces so that the slat that gets removed to remove the compost would even fit. After all those modifications, do you see what I mean about it not really costing much more to just have it built from scratch?As for the look of the thing, it's ok but the wood looks quite cheap...has a greeney tinge from the treatment and several of the pieces were already cracking/fraying at the edges. We'll see how it ages and how it performs as a composter but at this point I kind of wish I would have just chucked the thing when it arrived - I did consider returning after I was unable to assemble but there are so many pieces I could never have gotten them all back in the box. Also of note - I looked at the instructions to see if there was a website or helpline number when I was having trouble assembling, and the only thing given was a UK telephone number, which wasn't too helpful.

Came with broken parts and it's been chemically treated which makes it unusable for organic gardening.