A folk tradition of Slovenia are these painted bee hive panels.This Bee Hive is the one in the park in Bled where the bees are busy making honey and then the honey sold from right from the other side of this hut.We went to the Museum of Apiculture in the cute village of Radovljica to learn more. They had a neat exhibit where you could watch bees come in and work.The Carnica bees from this region of the Alps are exported all over the world, including as shown on a historical map to Colorado.The history of bee keeping and how to produce more honey was described in this 1775 book.We also went to nearby Kropa, the cradle of Slovenian iron forging.The river is channeled off to an canal on the right….…that is controlled and provides the waterwheel power for all the iron forging.The museum had models to explain the ingenuity of this system.This area was well know for producing nails. It took 2 people to work efficiently on a nail while the iron was hot. Some of the nails were over a foot long to go into beams.Much of the more recent works are window grilles – this from the 1950’s.Amazing detail – especially when you think about how you have to form all this while the metal is hot.
