The Hive Slot Review

Theme & gameplay in The Hive

When I load up The Hive, what hits me first is the cute, cartoonish style Betsoft chose. The honeycomb reelset sits in front of a bright meadow, with trees, grass and flowers framing the screen while bees buzz round the hive. The grid itself is a 3-4-5-4-3 hexagon with 19 positions, so wins form in quirky patterns that fit the bee theme nicely.

The Hive plays like a mix of classic paylines and Cluster Pays. Technically you get 30 fixed win lines paying both left-to-right and right-to-left, yet the honeycomb layout makes clusters of matching symbols stand out visually. As a player, it feels very smooth, with frequent small hits that keep the balance ticking over while you wait for the bee features and free spins to kick in.

The Hive Game Details & Features

On the maths side, The Hive sits around the mid nineties for return, with RTP figures across different sources running from 96.07% up to about 96.97%. In play it behaves as a low volatility slot, with steady drips of wins rather than huge spikes. Stakes start at 0.10 per spin and go up to 10, and the maximum potential sits at 378x stake, so the jackpot feels quite modest.

Bees of the hive in The Hive

The symbol set in The Hive uses nine regular icons, split into seven low pays and two premiums. On the low side you get four A-J royals made of sticky honey and three colourful flowers. The higher wins come from the ladybird and the bee queen, with the queen symbol paying up to 10x your total bet for a full win, so she is the face you want to see.

Away from the paytable icons, three special bee characters circle the honeycomb on up to eighteen marked spots. A new bee can appear on any spin, then slides one position clockwise each round and eventually buzzes off after a random number of moves. Their powers tie the whole game together, as each bee type tweaks either the reel setup, the multipliers or the all-important Honey Meter.

Queen Bees in The Hive call extra bees to the party, so every spin while she is active can add another insect around the grid and pack the frame with helpers. Drone Bees feed the Honey Meter faster, raising it one step each time they sit beside the hive. Worker Bees attach stacking multipliers to aligned wins, building the win multiplier by one each time a new worker joins in.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	5	x10
	4	x5
	3	x2
	5	x5
	4	x2.5
	3	x1.5
	5	x0.8
	4	x0.5
	3	x0.3
	5	x0.8
	4	x0.5
	3	x0.3
	5	x0.8
	4	x0.5
	3	x0.3
	5	x0.5
	4	x0.3
	3	x0.1
	5	x0.5
	4	x0.3
	3	x0.1
	5	x0.3
	4	x0.2
	3	x0.1
	5	x0.3
	4	x0.2
	3	x0.1

Sticky Sweet Free Spins in The Hive

Free spins in The Hive come from the Honey Meter on the left of the screen. Each win nudges it up, though Drone Bees are the real accelerators, filling one level every time they appear. Once you hit level twelve you pick up five Sticky Sweet Free Spins, starting with up to three Honey Burst Wilds on the grid. All bees leave as the feature begins and reappear afterwards in their old spots.

Those five spins can be surprisingly tense for a low volatility slot. The base game already has a high hit rate, quoted at just under half of all spins, so by the time I reach the bonus I often have Worker multipliers lined up and a chunky line of bees on screen. When the spreading wilds land in the right place, even a gentle game like this can throw up handy wins.

Honey Burst Spreading Wilds in The Hive

Honey Burst Spreading Wilds in The Hive only appear during those Sticky Sweet Free Spins. Any wild on the honeycomb will ooze into adjacent cells on each spin, gradually covering more of the 3-4-5-4-3 grid until either no empty spots remain or the round ends. When it works well you can fill entire clusters with wilds, stacking them with Worker Bee multipliers and squeezing plenty of value out of just a few spins.

The Hive slot verdict

From a player's point of view, The Hive sits firmly in the relaxed, low stakes corner of Betsoft's portfolio. The top win of 378x stake and the small absolute jackpot figure, even at the 10 per spin ceiling, show that this slot is not chasing huge swings. Instead it gives fans of animal and nature themes a light, colourful way to pass time with bees buzzing round the reels.

After a fair few sessions on The Hive, I see it as a game for winding down rather than grinding for serious profit. The regular small wins, steady bee activity and Honey Meter progress keep things engaging, but seasoned players hunting thousand-x hits will probably look elsewhere. For casual play on desktop or mobile, though, the smooth HTML5 engine and simple controls make it an easy slot to come back to.

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