Scented Candles and Honey Pastries

Following the autumn bee grazing, candle-makers buy wax from beekeepers and process it into candles and rounded figurines.

Different candle-making techniques are used: soaking, dripping, moulding, pulling and twisting.

Beeswax is a yellowish substance secreted by 12 to 18 day old worker bees from the wax glands on the underside of the abdomen and is used to build honeycombs. Wax is also used to produce wax caps with which cells, filled with honey, are covered.

Beekeepers obtain wax by using a press (separates honey and wax by pressing), or a modern wax melter, to melt the comb and waste beeswax that has been scraped from the hive.

Wax candle production's essential ingredient in the form of reels.

Making of honeybread is the craft of making honey-based baked goods from honey dough, mostly mixed with rye flour, with added spices.

The most famous Slovenian traditional types of honeybread are the colorful Lect, Loka honeybread and Dražgoše honeybread.

Characteristic shapes of Lect are hearts, horseshoes and various animals. Dough is decorated using a coloured sugar mixture.

Various images, notelets with romantic and other verses are affixed to it.

Loka honeybread

Loka honeybread is a pastry made of spiced honey dough that is pressed into wooden moulds, characteristic of the Škofja Loka area.

Moulds for Loka honeybread

Mould for "horse" shaped Loka honeybread

Dražgoše honeybread

is a handmade decorated honeybread, named after the village of Dražgoše near Železniki. 

The oldest shapes are decorated hearts and half moons, which boys and girls gave to each other on the Christian holiday of Three Kings. 

Edelweiss, in Slovene planika (Leontopodium nivale)