honey – My Botanical Garden

In my last post I was writing about bees and a reader has asked me to tell some more as her father is an apiarist.It certainly is not my field ,but in My botanical garden bees always have been dear guests specially since also in Slovenia Colony collapse disorder has been recorded and it became clear that we all,as a society,should know more about bees ,to be able to act with full responsibility.Why?

Colony collapse is significant economically because many agricultural crops worldwide are pollinated by bees; and ecologically, because of the major role that bees play in the reproduction of plant communities in the wild. from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder

Knowledge about bees and beekeeping is an old one in my country.The pioneer in this field is Anton Janša (1734-1773), painter and apiarist.He was a big authority in the field,becoming first royally appointed teacher of apiculture for all Austrian lands.

I simply love what he wrote:

Bees are a type of fly, hardworking, created by God to provide man with all needed honey and wax. Amongst all God’s beings there are none so hard working and useful to man with so little attention needed for its keep as the bee.

The EmpressMaria Theresa issued a decree after Janša’s death obliging all teachers of apiculture to use his books.from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Jan%C5%A1a

The bee he was talking about is Carniolan honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica Pollman).

The bee is the subspecies of the Western honey bee that has naturalized and adapted to the Kočevje (Gottschee) sub-region of Carniola (now in Slovenia), the southern part of the Austrian Alps and the northern Balkans. It is favored among beekeepers for several reasons, not the least being its ability to defend itself successfully against insect pests while at the same time being extremely gentle in its behavior toward beekeepers. from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniolan_honey_bee

Long tradition of apiculture in Slovenia mirrors in many crafts up to today.Their products evolved from deep understanding of the nature,they were shaped trough centuries giving bread to generations.They are sustainable in their origin, but still able to reach esthetic of today.For example this modern wooden jar for honey with waxed inside I use for our Sunday breakfasts:

And of course ,the traditional wooden honey spoon-a simple but smart tool to prevent honey dripping all over the table when preparing bread-butter-honey “sandwich”: