top bar hives in Denver

Here are the first two hives of the Saint Isidore Society.

We are using the plans from Philip Chandler's site, http://www.biobees.com

http://timeinventorskabinet.org/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php/ami/ami/how_to_build_a_top_bar_hive-02.pdf

Has anyone used this type of hive in the Denver area? I would be interested to hear how it went.

In your experience, does it work better to wax top bars, or leave them plain, with just a groove?