Bee Hive Bonanza

Bee Hive Bonanza Overview

Developed by the NetEnt studio, Bee Hive Bonanza introduces you to the colourful and frenetic world of bees and their honey-making operations. That said, the bees in this game seem a little more soporific than the regular black and yellow drones you see covering miles in their pursuit of pollen. Mechanically, this game is a highly volatile scatter pays game with a five-row, five-reel playing board. The pay table comprises a range of fun and colourful symbols, with some offering exciting prizes. The approximate RTP for this game sits at 96.09%.

The bonus feature content in this game is varied but begins with the avalanche feature, triggered every time a player scores a win on the board. When this happens, the winning symbols are removed and replaced by a new set of symbols. This gives players more chances to win from the same spin. This game's other main bonus features are the money bee feature and the free spins feature. Both of these add tremendous value to your spins. Finally, this game also has a bonus buy option. All features will be explained in more detail later on in the review.

Theme and Symbols

The theme for this game is buzzy bees and their insatiable appetite for pollen. Although this game's theme is very deep-rooted in all things bees, there is another aspect to the aesthetics here, which is a royal family and court structure, no doubt inspired by the fact that every hive of bees has a Queen. Playing on this, the designers have created a range of characters that fit into this structure, including a jester, a knight and an archer. In addition, there is a castle visual for the board itself, implying that all these characters live within a mighty stone fortress.

The background for this game is every bee's paradise – a lush and multicoloured meadow full of flowers of all types. The meadow is indeed blanketed in a carpet of wildflowers, their petals nodding in the breeze. The sun is shining, and the nearby river sparkles in the light. The air is fresh and clean, and the meadow is alive with the sound of birdsong. It's a peaceful, idyllic scene in the valley of mountains. All of this is created with a soft cartoonish style that gives the image a simple and appealing feel.

The playing board has been designed to look like a castle with a range of turrets filled with lights decorating the edges of the reels.

The symbols are split into low-paying, high-paying and special symbols. The low-paying icons are the various tokens that come in green, grey and silver, with the silver one being worth the most at 6x the stake for the top combination. On the other hand, the more valuable symbols are the brown, red, gold and bronze tokens. The most valuable of these is the bronze token, paying out 8x the stake for the top combination. The specials finally comprise the jester, archer, knight, and Queen bees, as well as the three money bee icons and the scatter symbol, which looks like a font you might find in a church.

Game Play

Bee Hive Bonanza is played on a 5-reel, 5-row machine with a scatter pays winning dynamic. This means that to score wins in this game, players must land six or more matching symbols on the board simultaneously. It doesn't matter where they land, as long as they are the same icon.
The betting range for Bee Hive Bonanza is 10p to £200 per spin. To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stake up and down using the tool located at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

Further information, including a short tutorial and a display of the paytable, can be found via the menu button in the right-hand corner of the screen. The spin and auto spin buttons are located in the centre of the screen.
Volatility for this slot is rated in the high range. The return to player percentage for Bee Hive Bonanza is 96.09%, which is above average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 5,000x your stake.

Features

The first feature of this game is the avalanche feature. This is triggered any time a player scores a win. When this happens, the winning symbols are removed from the reels and replaced with a new set that falls into the vacant spaces. This helps players score more wins from the same spin.

The next feature is called the Money Bee feature. It is triggered on any base game or free spin. When it is bee symbols possessing values of 1, 2, 5, or 10x the stake will randomly appear on the grid. These values are then collected by the Bee Hive symbol, Adder Bee Hive or multiplier Bee Hive icons simultaneously. These bee icons then disappear when collected. Collector icons also have other abilities. These are explained below:
Beehive – collects the face value of all Bee symbols in view.
Multiplier Beehive – multiplies the values of all Bee symbols by x2 before they are added to the Beehive, Multiplier Beehive, of Adder Beehives on the grid.
Adder Beehive – increases the values of all Bee symbols in view by the bet value before they are collected by the Beehive, Multiplier Beehive, of Adder Beehives on the grid.

Finally, this game also has a free spins game. This feature is triggered when players land three, four or five Honey Pot scatter icons in the main game. The more scatters that you land, the more free spins you will earn. The money bee feature is also active during this feature.
Collecting additional scatters in this feature also fills the meter, which in turn grants you more multipliers that boost your payouts. You will be given two new spins every time you reach a new multiplier level.
This game also has a bonus buy feature that allows you to purchase access to the free spins. However, this option is not available in the UK.

Conclusion

Buzzy and exciting with decent payouts, this game is more than just some nice graphics and a fun theme. The RTP is encouraging, and the top payout looks good too. Features, despite the volatility, seemed to be triggered quite regularly when we played, adding a lot more value to your gaming experience. NetEnt has put together a winner here. We suggest you to try also Bigger Bass Bonanza from our free slot machines collection.