Sunday, July 29, 2018

Radovljica's Apiary Museum

As if the location, ambiance, architecture, history, shoppes, scenery and views were not enough, Radovljica also has the world's only known (to me) apicultural museum. Much as I personally dislike bees and their stinging ways, I readily concede their nearly paramount importance in helping propagate much of life as we know it on this planet. Beekeeping is the principal cottage industry in Croatia, Boznia-Hertzegovina, and Slovenia, as we've seen in previous posts, and it has a long history. So we have been building up to this. Plus the beehive front boards--a whole room of them--are a hoot. And I like honey and especially the honey brandy I bought in Ljubljana. Thus, for all these and many more reasons, we had to see the Apiary Museum in Radovljica. Also, personal hero Sir Ed from New Zealand was also a bee keeper.
The adjoining city museum also had an exhibit on local boy and Englightenment
figure Anton Linhart

There were many rooms depicting the history of bee keeping, the evolution of
various implements, etc.

Bee hive "guards" (against what? I ask)

The painted front boards are the main draw for most people; from the later 18th
onward, bee keepers did these painted boards on the assumption they would
help the bees more easily find their way home; who knows? Producing replicas
for the souvenir shoppes of Ljubljana is certainly a secondary industry

Many are on religious themes





Some maybe multicultural themes

Flood?

Some satirical if repugnant


A winter scene...BORING! Let's get back to the funny stuff


One of the more elaborate bee hives

"Stop, thief!"

Little Big Horn?

Benefits of not drinking?

De-heading battle scene

Funeral procession for a hunter

Apparently the bees really like violent scenes

Another religious scene

Other implements

Actual working beehive in the museum

Bee tunnel to the hive

Useful information you probably already know but which is here to show the
museum's excellent interpretive signage, and in English too

Further rooms, further  interesting displays, although not as interesting at the
front boards

Ceiling of one of the rooms

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