The Museum of Apiculture in Radovljica, home of the Carniolan bee

The painted beehive panels

The museum’s artistic highlight is the painted panels from traditional Slovenian hives, the front boards beekeepers decorated with religious, historical and everyday scenes. The Slovenian Tourist Board says this is the largest collection on display, with just under 250 pieces. They’re small and very colourful, and to me they’re what stays with you after the visit.

Between May and October a glass observation hive also lets you watch the bees come and go about their work. Videos and interactive points are designed for all ages, with special corners for children, and the texts are in Slovene and English.

The Carniolan bee

The permanent exhibition, installed in May 2021, is called “Living together. About bees and mankind”. It puts the Carniolan bee, the country’s native bee, at its heart, prized by beekeepers for its gentleness, adaptability, calm, productivity and resilience. The first part covers its biology, its role in the environment and the threats it faces. The second traces beekeeping in the past and the development of tools and equipment.

The third part is devoted to Slovenian beekeepers and the trade in Carniolan bees, sold to much of the world. Anton Janša stands out among them, the pioneer of modern beekeeping, whose birthday, 20 May, the UN proclaimed World Bee Day at Slovenia’s initiative.

Opening hours, tickets and the joint ticket

Hours and prices are in the table. My suggestion is the joint ticket with the Municipal Museum, in the same manor, which tells the life of Anton Tomaž Linhart, father of Slovenian theatre. Linhart staged the comedy Županova Micka, the birth of theatre in Slovene, and in 1788 published the first part of his history of Carniola, regarded as the start of Slovenian scientific historiography, so the two museums together make a well-rounded morning in Radovljica. Next door, the Lectar inn has a honeybread workshop you can see whenever the inn is open.

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More bees near Radovljica

If you leave wanting more, in Breznica, in the municipality of Žirovnica, there’s Janša’s memorial apiary, open to all, and in Lesce the Gorenjska beekeeping education centre explains modern beekeeping. The Gorenjska guide covers the rest of the surrounding region.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Museum of Apiculture and pick one that fits your day.

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