ms. Petra Sedej, Ljubljana SI
BEEHIVES AS PART OF THE CULTURAL HERITAGE
Belinka, the major Slovene manufacturer of wood coating, have been developing and producing articles for the protection of wood for over 25 years. However, Belinka have been trying to do more than just produce and sell. Our goal is to encourage people to establish a better relationship with wood as material. In order to obtain it, several campaigns have been carried out.
One of them, The Let-Us-Make-A-Beehive Campaign, was a joint operation of Belinka and the Beekeepers Association of Slovenia. The campaign was supposed to encourage pupils to discover beehives typical of their area. The Slovene beehives differ in roof covering, construction and front paintings, depending on the area of origin.
Belinka wanted to encourage the use of environment-friendly products. The students of carpentry secondary schools were asked to either find an interesting beehive in their surroundings or to collect information about the best looking one, and to make a model of it on a scale of either one to ten or one to fifteen.
Beekeeping, flourishing as early as in the 18th century, is popular throughout Slovenia. There are approximately 8,500 beekeepers boasting of as many as 12,000 frame hives in Slovenia. The Slovene beekeepers, members of the Beekeepers Association of Slovenia do not only raise their bees. Their bees are an essential part of their lives. In order not to mistaken their hives, the beekeepers are used to marking and painting their front sides, thus creating the so-called panjske končnice, a peculiarity of Slovene cultural heritage.