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Beekeeping, before realised by the Slovene and which created astonishing decorated pediments of beehives, presented very particular features well - studied by the professor Frederic RUTTNER. The modern Apiculture can have numerous purposes: production of honey, pollen, royal jelly or salvage of propolis for instance.
During centuries, the farmers bred bees above all for honey and for the sugar. Then, in Slovenia, under the impetus of some notables, apiculture also aimed at the rearing of bees…Thanks to this long tradition, the Slovene had become well-known apiarist. The writings ,dated the 15th century, relate the commerce of honey and wax.
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Thanks to the bees, one of these authors entered the history in the 18th century : Anton JANŠA. This young son of farmer, native of Breznica, in Slovenia, was the first professor of imperial and royal apiculture at the school of Vienna founded by the Archduchess Marie – Therese of Vienna. Thanks to his teaching, and mainly to his writings on the " Swarming " (1771), and his " Complete Treatise on Apiculture " (1775), he has contributed significantly to the development of apiculture. But insisting on this people’s tradition, so outstandingly illustrated by JANSA, doesn’t have to let us forgotten the very particular characteristics of the Slovene bees. |
These
Slovene bees single themselves out the others breeds; they have been named in 1875 APIS MELLIFERA
CARNICA.
Further Anton JANSA’s work, the Slovene became thus renowned for their commerce of queen bees and swarms in the 19th century. At this age, the merchants of bees of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy have sent swarms and colonies of bees coming from their flat hives, in all the European countries. Some of these merchants, for instance the " Baron " Rotschütz or Mickaël Ambrozic, carried in whole wagons these bees to apiarists of the Western and Central Europe. The bees came from countries of mountains between the Adriatic and the Drave ; that’s to say where three countries meet today : Hungary , Austria and Slovenia.
From 1857 to the World War I, the apiarists of the Carniole plain have dispatched more than 170 000 queen bees all over the world. Despite the two wars which have sharply affected this trade, the bee CARNICA became the referenced bee for many countries, especially in Northern and central Europe. Introduced in the United States at the end of the last century by the Slav immigrants, a derived race has been there even baptised " New World Carniolan Bee ".
THE SELECTION OF THE CARNIOLAN BEE
Facing the appearance of derived breeds, a lot of efforts have been realised after the World War II to organise the selection of the Carniolan Bee in Slovenia.
These efforts have borne fruit and an Office for the Carnica selection have been created in 1984 in Ljubljana. Thus the quality and the selection of this bee have been placed under the permanent control of he Slovene Agricultural Minister , who has made the protection of the autochthonous Carnica one of his priorities, especially since the independence of the country in 1991.
Since 1992, all the queen bees have been listed and tested regularly in selected hives.
The Agricultural Minister has reunified many experts in apiculture, searchers, apiarists and vets n a major program called " Selection of the Carniolan bee and organisation of the land registry " and other similar projects aiming at enhancing the qualities of Slovene queen bees.
The Office for the CARNICA selection, buys thus annually, thanks to subsidies from
Agricultural Minister, the forest and alimentary industry, 1 200 first – quality
queen bees and distribute them to apiarists to have them tested; then all the data are
compared, analysed, ranked in order to classify the producing qualities of the bees. The
apiarists are guided and advised in the choice of their queen bees ; therefore the
bees are exclusively coming from breeding which have the best results.
Each year, the Office for the CARNICA selection releases assent to only about fifteen breeders having scrupulously respected the searchers’ guidelines and using the best techniques of selection and rearing. Only these breeders , strictly selected and ranked, are allowed to export their queen bees, in order to offer only the best races with the CARNICA original qualities. The introduction of other bee - breeds is strongly forbidden, the breeders are obliged not to keep the queen bees that do not have the Carnolian ecotype, in order to guarantee a pure race of bee. Today 30 000 queen bees are bred each year which 1/3 are exported, and the production can be doubled. It is in this prospect of the research of quality, issued of a long apiarist tradition, that Slovenia will welcome in 2003 in Ljubljana the 38th congress APIMONDIA.
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Last modified on the 04/02/08 – ® Site created by Louis Ivanec– SC La Carniole ‘Import of Carnica queens from Slovenia’,19 allee du Gros Chene 63910 Chignat FRANCE