Visit to Ancient Beekeeping Museum

Our last "bee" event took place as a visit to the Museum of Ancient Beekeeping.  It was a fascinating place, full of sculptures of wooden images of beekeepers and pagan bee gods.  The hives were in tree trunks like those of Romas.

Here is an article from Bee Culture about Lithuanian bee culture and the bee museum.

Here's a slide show.  I haven't put any captions on the items yet - it's been a long day and a half of posting photos - but I'll do that later.  For now, you can probably figure out what everything is.




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We ended our Lithuanian beekeeping tour with a dinner at a restaurant in Vilnius.  Simona who set the tour up, joined us and we got to recap our experience with her.  It was delightful and I am so glad that we went.  I grabbed a random citizen on the street as we returned to the van and had him take a photo of all of us together on the last day.

Nine Honey Apiary Visit near the border of Latvia

Nine Honey Apiary Visit near the border of Latvia, a set on Flickr.  To see the slides with labels, click here.  To see the slides, look at the slide below.

The pictures tell the story of this lovely visit to another apiary in Lithuania. This apiary is very near the border of Latvia. We went to their bees and watched them take frames of honey for harvest. We had fun talking to them about bees and getting the feel for their beekeeping approaches.

Like Solys, they also use chemicals in their hives. They treat with Amitraz every two or three years. They have about 30 hives in their apiary.

If you click on a slide, you can see the label.

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Candle Making Workshop in Rumsiskes, Lithuania.

Candle Making Workshop in Rumsiskes, Lithuania., a set on Flickr - click on the link at the beginning of the sentence to see the slides instead of these small thumbnails.

On the third day of our Lithuanian tour we went to the historic community open air museum near Rumsiskes. The area is set up in fragments of villages. It was established in 1966 and is a wonderful depiction of Lithuanian life with 140 buildings, flower gardens, orchards, etc.

We were lucky to get to take a candle making workshop and each of us got to try the old-fashioned way of pouring candles.

We discovered that the wax has to be kept at a relatively low temperature - I think wax melts at 140 degrees F. If it gets warmer than that, it won't harden on the wick and just slides right back down into the bowl.

In the end you get a candle that is long and pretty, but a little out of shape. A rolling pin/board is then used to even it up and to make an end for a candle holder.

We each went away with a candle and had a great time - not to mention a really good lunch of traditional food. To see the labels on the slide, click on each individual slide.
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Bees Up In the Trees with Romas

Bees Up In the Trees with Romas, a set on Flickr - click on the link to see the entire slide show instead of just the thumbnails depicted above.

Although I've already posted on this amazing tree climb into the tops of trees to inspect high-up bee hives, this slideshow is more comprehensive and less difficult to scroll through.

I was so amazed by this process that I took lots of photos every step of the way.

BTW, all along this path were wild raspberries and huckleberries, so we feasted on them as we walked. There were also blackberries but they weren't ripe yet.

Romas also showed us his well for drinking water and his way of getting rid of the ants that bother his bees. He treats his tree trunks with a birch resin paint that he makes by steaming the birch bark in a dutch oven type arrangement in an outdoor fire pit.

There are ant lions living under his front porch and when he finds ants, he often throws them under his porch where the ant lions rather violently eat them (we saw this in action!).  Here's a link to a video of an ant being eaten by an ant lion.  And here's another.  I thought this was fascinating.

 To see the labels on individual slides, click on them in the slideshow:
Created with flickr slideshow.