I am a beekeeper, and id say if you want simplicity and cheapness, the ware hive is the exact opposite of that. It looks very cool, but to be honest its the most complicated and therefore expensive hive. The good old fashioned langstroth is about as basic as it comes, and there is a good reason why it is the most popular choice of hive in the world, and that beekeepers have literally been using it for centuries without much change. The biggest disadvantage with the ware and top bar hives, is the single bar instead of a full wired frame. This makes extraction basically impossible without destroying the comb, Which means you cant reuse it, are all your poor bees hardwork is constantly being destroyed. In terms of adding boxes from the bottom instead of the top, you can do that with a langsroth too. But again i question the wisdom of forcing the bees to move there brood nest every time you add a box....sorry if that's more info than you asking for, but my suggestion, if you want cheap and simple is download a free langstroth plan off beesource. Build it using the cheapest wood you can get, and use box joints, coat the whole thing in wax dip or waxol.