Abstract

Avgust Bukovec came to Ljubljana when he was five years old and remained a resident of the city until the end of his long and creative life. He had many talents, he was attracted to nature and as a child he wanted to become a forester, but fate intervened, and he became a financial officer. Thanks to his relatives, Bukovec was involved in beekeeping from an early age. He finally became committed to bees when he bought his first hives at the age of 25. Even as a young man, Bukovec became involved in the work of the organisation of Slovenian beekeeping and pioneered the establishment of branches in Slovenia. Following his marriage, he soon moved to a villa in Ljubljana at the address Gruberjevo nabrežje 14, where he set up an apiary in the garden, in which he had up to 120 hives.

The apiary became not only the centre of his community, but also a place for Ljubljana’s beekeepers to meet. He also dedicated his apiary for a beekeeping museum, of which he was the director. From a young age, Bukovec admired the paintings on the fronts of beehive panels and later devoted himself enthusiastically to collecting them. He later donated the extensive collection of beehive panels and all the other objects that he had collected to the Museum of Apiculture in Radovljica. Bukovec also left a lasting legacy as the editor of the Slovenski čebelar (Slovenian Beekeeper) gazette from 1925 to 1944. His tireless long-term work in beekeeping led to him being included among the handful of most important Slovenian beekeepers and beekeeping organisers in the entire history of Slovenian beekeeping. Unfortunately, his famous apiary – from 1927 onwards also the first beekeeping museum in Slovenia – was demolished in 1960 due to the construction of a block of flats.