By Beekeeping Museum in Radovljica
Created by Radovljica's Museum of Apiculture
Candle-making
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 in order to protect it from external influences.
Wax candle production's essential ingredient in the form of reels.
Candle-making machine, used to produce wick.
Making honey pastries
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.
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.
Loka honeybread is a pastry made of spiced honey dough that is pressed into wooden moulds, characteristic of the Škofja Loka area. The most common shapes are hearts, rhombuses and circles.
Apitherapy
Apitherapy is the science of strengthening an maintaining health with the help of bee products and stings. The beginnings of apitherapy date back to the time of Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Babylonian and other civilisations. The originator of modern apitherapy was a Maribor doctor and beekeeper of Czech descent, Dr. Filip Terč (1844-1917). He was involved in use of bee sting as a remedy for rheumatism. His birthday, 30 March, was declared World Apitherapy Day by Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers's Associations.
Bees collect pollen with the hairs on their bodies and bring it to the hive in the pollen baskets on their hind legs. Its main ingredients are proteins, vitamins and minerals. It can be extracted from honeycomb cells or with the help of pollen traps.
Royal jelly is food for the bee brood and queen. It is formed in the pharyngeal glands of young nurse bees, 5 to 12 days of age. Jelly is off-white to yellow-white in colour and has a sour-sharp smell and a pungent, bitter-sour and sharp taste.
In apitherapy, royal jelly is used to inhibit the ageing process, regulate the functioning of glands, accelerate metabolism, mitigate the signs of ageing and eliminate the effect of arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure.
Propolis is an aromatic resinous substance that bees collect on the buds and bark of some trees (birch, poplar, chesnut) and to which they add ferment from their saliva. Besides coating and clogging up the the hive bees also use it to fight off microorganisms in their hive. Propolis is a natural antibiotic, used widely in apitherapy.
This story is based on the book 'Living Together. About Bees and Mankind' by Dr. Petra Bole.
🖋 Text: Dr. Petra Bole | 📸 Photography: Ivan Esenko
Learn more about Radovljica Municipality Museums' Museum of Apiculture on our website.
