Aspects of Traditional Beekeeping - Yesterday and Today - in Lithuania

Simona

When I close my eyes, I see a flowering meadow. There are no flowering fields of rapeseed or phacelia. All that blooms are native, not alien plants. In the forest behind the stream, alder buckthorns, rowan trees, and elderberries are blooming. The bees hum quietly. At the edge of an area of a half-hectare, near a small round pine tree, a straw hive with wooden box for honeycombs is set on a table (Pic.1). This is my first populated hive! And I proudly have already giving a name of ‘apiary’ to my land with one beehive standing in it! And then I open my eyes, I see it is a green winter outside the window. Now I am in the Netherlands. Here I hope to start learning beekeeping from a famous skep beehive beekeeper in spring.

All my weaving activities started in a nature camp in the ancient Lithuanian apiary-museum in our own Dzūkija National Park. There I learned how to weave a traditional unit of measure of volume and a container as well – gorčius (Pic. 2-6).

In the times of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, this container of the XIV -XVI centuries corresponded to the current of 5.6 liters, and from the XVI century - to 2.8 liters. Lithuanians measured volume by gorčius for a long time, differently than in Europe, Lithuanians didn’t start to measure by liter when it was introduced in XVIII century. Even until the beginning of the XX century we measured in gorčius. Although there were bees buzzing around the camp, I had never heard of woven beehives before. In Lithuania, bees have been raised in tree trunks and hollow hives for many centuries. Such beehives are also in the Musteika apiary-museum, you can scroll it on www.facebook.com/Ancient.beekeeping.

1. My wooden box of honeycomb with woven skep - already covered and plastered with a mix of clay, sand and lime.

2. On the right of the picture – two finished gorčiai and at the left – the starting phase of gorčius’ production.

3. The start of weaving gorčius. On the left it is made with freshly digged pine root out of earth, and on the right – the same root just kept in water for a long time (one month) adjusted for weaving.

4. Gorčius, the dark one and the light one.

5. The bottoms of gorčius.

6: Gorčiai in my hands.

Weaving gradually turned from a hobby into my livelihood. I was often invited to various festivals and cultural centers to teach braid weaving. I remember how a woman came to one of them and asked if I made beehives and began telling me about her grandfather who lived in the region of Klaipeda and was a beekeeper in braided beehives. I even gasped in surprise. In the winter of that year, I went to several of the largest Lithuanian museums to see the old Lithuanian beehives preserved in the museum funds. I photographed them all and measured them so that I would know how to make them. Knowing my new passion, an acquaintance sent me the contacts of a woman who sells braided beehives. This is how the first exhibits of my collection came about (Pic.7). The idea finally matured to allow me to weave my own first beehive (pic.8).

7. Old cylindrical skeps that I was lucky to buy.

8. My first woven skep among other creations.

9. The meadow of rye.

10. The rye cut with sickle. Later they are lied on and wrapped into tablecloth.

11. After day of work it is possible to relax.

Now that I already knew how to weave I realized that some Lithuanian beehives are woven in the same way as ‘gorčiai’. The most difficult thing was to get a large amount of Lithuanian long rye, because due to the developing agricultural policy, farmers grow less and less of it, because the payments for it are significantly lower than for wheat (Pic.9) I cut rye for beehives in the same way as for gorčiai or braided plates - with a hand sickle (Pic.10). Then I wrap them like babies in tablecloths and carry them to the car. Cutting rye is quite difficult, I get quite tired after such work and I want to lie down (Pic.11). There is a lot of work to be done at home - to cut the ears of rye with scissors, to clean the leaves from the straw, to pick out weeds. And then I go to the forest for digging pine roots! Yes, you heard it rightpine roots are torn, they will be used to interweave rye straw. In the same way, “gorčiai” are woven in Lithuania from rye straw and pine roots or linden wicks. It's true, now that I've been in the Netherlands, I've started to get a little lazy and buy ready-made and split rattan canes.

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17: two rings of cylinder skep on the wooden honeycomb.

18: one cylinder skep with a lid.

19: cylinder skep weaved the same way as the hat shaped skep.

20: the long skep from Šiauliai Aušra museum.

21: the long skep with door from Šiauliai Aušros museum.

22: the long skep, the form of which reminds us of the skeps of Breigel’s drawing.

Woven beehives have been known in Lithuania since the XIX century, although it is possible that this tradition was known in western Lithuania much earlier. Most of the largest Lithuanian museums have at least one woven beehive in their collections. And the number of people who are interested in braided beehives is gradually increasing. Here is my Face- book page: www.facebook.com/pintiaviliai which already has more than 700 followers. You can also buy traditional or sun beehives that I weave there.

Traditional Lithuanian woven beehives are divided into types according to their shape - hat-shaped (Pic.12-16), cylinder-shaped (Pic.1719) and long beehives (Pic.21-23). The first ones are earlier. Interestingly, unlike in Western Europe, the hives here have a wooden pin going through the central hole. It can be long, reaching the arc of the hive and connecting to the wooden part of the antechamber (Pic.13), or short, just 7-10 cm, covering only the central opening of the hive from above. The hives are quite thick, going from 5.5 to 8.5 cm thick. Winters in Lithuania are cold, sometimes it can be under -20 degrees Celsius at night, so a thick-walled beehive is necessary. The cylindrical hives (Pic.17-20) are woven in a completely different way which is by placing rye from above on a wooden loom and pressing it with the help of a loom. Also, such cylindrical hives have a cover which can be made up from several cylindrical rings or also with a box for the honeycomb (Pic.17). I found one beehive braided in the same way as a hat beehive and even with a pin, but it is cylindrical and made of several rings (Pic. 19). Some of the hives wear out over the years and are repaired, such surviving marks can be seen in the museum exhibits. The smallest group of beehives found in Lithuania are the long beehives, only five of which are preserved in Lithuanian museums (Pic.20-22). One of them is very similar in shape to the beehive from the Bruegel’s painting (Pic.22)

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23-25: wooden components of the hives I am unable to build, but they are expertly made by Giedrius.

26: Weaving hives in the outdoors on a pleasant day - what could be more relaxing!

I weave many different kind of skeps and there are so many examples from the past to learn more about, but sadly there is no room for further examples here (see my website(!). Of course, in order to produce a traditional hat-shaped skep it takes longer and the help of a carpenter is needed. The carpenter, Giedrius, helps me to make those beautiful wooden honeycombs boxes stools and pins. (Pic 23 -25). In the summer, I prefer weaving in the nature and that's where I get inspired and relaxed (Pic 26).