Beekeeping

From Abe at http://velacreations.blogspot.com/ :

On the beehive, this is not a tropical version, but year-round version that has seen winters in Montana and summers in Mexico. Take a look at http://www.biobees.com for more information on maintaining this type of hive. He also has a great forum.

If you have really cold winters, you might consider a Warre hive, which is basically the same thing as my barrel hive, but vertical. You still have the top bars in there, no frames, no foundation, etc. You can find a book by Warre on the net to read more about it. Very simple.