The apiary · Radovljica, since 1998
Kept slowly, above the Sava
Two people, 180 hives and a honey room on the old square. This is how a jar of ours is made.
Mojca and Tine
Her grandfather’s nine hives, and a kitchen that smelled of wax
Mojca Zupan inherited a row of painted hive fronts on the Jelovica edge in 1998, when she was nineteen. She kept them the way he had: Carniolan bees, wooden frames, a smoker of dry fern, and no feeding sugar in summer.
Tine Kralj joined in 2011 and built the honey room on Linhartov trg. He spins each flow on its own, never warms a jar past the heat of the hive, and writes every lid by hand. Between them they still lift every frame themselves.
A capped frame from the June lime flow, lifted on the plateau.
Four meadows, four heights
- 1,250 mPokljuka heath32 hives · heather and alpine flowers, July to September
- 1,040–1,130 mJelovica plateau58 hives · lime blossom in June, fir honeydew in good Augusts
- 510–560 mLipniška dolina44 hives · meadow flowers and buckwheat
- 420–460 mSava valley46 hives · acacia in May, sweet chestnut in July
“Hold a jar to the window. If the light comes through gold and slow, the bees had a good month. That is the only test we trust.”
