An overview of the Urban Beekeeping Year 2024 in 12 pictures

The Urban Beekeepers' Association of Slovenia was founded in February 2014 and our tenth year of operations was to great extent also marked by this jubilee; although the results far exceed our initial ambitions, we have no shortage of plans and ideas for the future - which is why we can recapitulate the 2024 season with satisfaction.
1. Photo exhibition on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Urban Beekeepers' Association
On the occasion of our 10th anniversary, we put up an open-air photography exhibition on the Krakovo Embankment of the river Ljubljanica in February 2024. World-acclaimed masters of photography such as Ciril Jazbec, Luka Dakskobler, Primož Predalič and others contributed their photographs for the event. Our sincere thanks to them and to the sponsors who made the exhibition possible!

The photographic exhibition, which presents beekeeping in the city and the activities of our association from different perspectives, was received extremely positively response and was in 2024 also on display at several other venues, such as Citycenter Celje and the Aleja shopping centre in Ljubljana.
2. Ljubljana's first urban honey with organic certification
The year 2024 brought one of the milestones of urban beekeeping in Slovenia: the first extraction of urban honey with an eco-organic certificate took place at the beginning of August at the creative Center Rog. (Before 2023, or until national legislation was harmonised with that of the EU, it was not possible to register as an organic urban beekeeper in Slovenia.) The first urban eco-organic honey also found its place at the RogExpo exhibition.

Dnevnik daily newspaper published a long report on this important miliestone. Due to the complexity of the work and the strict controls, only 1% of registered beekeepers in Slovenia have the eco-organic certification (the EU average is 30%), but after much effort and investment, from 2024 organic honey from Ljubljana is already available on a dozen locations. We believe this is in line with sustainable urban development, circular economy, local sourcing of top quality food and building consumer trust.
3. We hosted visitors from all over the world
During the season, our urban beekeeping locations in the centre of Ljubljana welcomed many visitors from all over the world, from the USA, Europe and Africa to the Emirates, Kyrgyzstan and India...

A visit to one of our hive sites on the rooftops of Ljubljana, not usually accessible to the general public, brings a fresh perspective on the city fabric and on coexistence with all living beings within the urban environment, as well as first-hand contact with bees and beekeeping. Meetings can be organised according to expectations and wishes - just get in touch, welcome!
4. Hive stand at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs
The hive stand, designed for our EU project "Prison Honey" by the students of the Faculty of Design (mentors Dr Jasna Hrovatin and Nataša Šušteršič Plotajs), has acquired a twin in the grove in front of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. The MFEA is very active in its "bee diplomacy" and supports many projects around the world that strengthen social and environmental resilience.

Foreign minister Tanja Fajon and FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu symbolically announced its opening at the special ceremony in May 2024. The design of the hive paintings draws on Slovenian ethnological tradition and is an inventive reinterpretation of our heritage. A copy of one of these hives, which have already won awards for their design originality, is also in the newly-opened exhibition depot of the Beekeeping Museum in Radovljica.
5. Testing of the handy portable bee swarm vac
Our member and technical inventor Dejan Pečnik has designed and built a practical portable "vacuum cleaner" for bee swarms. In a test during a rather challenging situation - a swarm wrapped between the branches of a bush - not a single bee was injured - after a short quarantine, the bees were all moved to a hive at a new location. The result was repeated throughout the swarming season...

The vac is extremely light, convenient and well-designed; made of low-cost modular elements, with attention to detail. It certainly makes our work much easier when we respond to the many calls for help with swarms around Ljubljana. Thank you, Dejan, and congratulations!
6. High-profile lecture on the Renson method
Our Association is committed to providing members and the interested public with opportunities to learn about professional topics beyond the usual themes. In April 2024, master bee-keeper Mr Dušan Skok gave a highly acclaimed lecture on Renson's approach to beekeeping, a special method of swarming prevention.

This method helps to increase honey yields at the end of the season by simply limiting brood rearing in the colony... Similarly interesting was the lecture by Mr Mihael Kanop on the cultivation of melliferous plants. We will do our best to continue to provide fresh content for local beekeepers also in the future!
7. "Bees for Peace" Symposium at MEK Berlin
The Slovenian Cultural-Information Centre Berlin and the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Berlin co-organised a symposium entitled "Bees for Peace" at the Museum Europäischer Kulturen at the closing of the exhibition "Buzzing Slovenia: Of Bees and People", where we had the honour to present some of the socially responsible projects of our association in an excellent international line-up.

The "Bees for Peace" symposium aimed to bring together international experts, enthusiasts, diplomats and activists from different fields to share their insights on the link between bees and human society. The aim of the event, which filled the foyer of the MEK, was to raise awareness of the contribution of pollinators to greater ecological and social resilience. Congratulations to all co-organisers!
8. The issue of high density of honey bee colonies
A growing body of expert research and analysis shows that the expansion of beekeeping and overpopulation of honeybees has negative consequences for the ecosystem - reduced pollinator diversity, food shortages and lower yields. N1 published a series of articles on this topic in mid-2024, including from the perspective of urban beekeeping.
The National Veterinary Institute pointed out as early as 2014 the excessive density of honeybee hives in Slovenia and there was another article about this in 2021... all to no avail. Nevertheless, Staš Zgonik won the prestigious Watchdog Award in 2024 for his investigative journalism work - congratulations!
9. Planting melliferous plants
As in the previous years, our Association was one of the few beekeeping clubs to actively engage in the planting of nectar and pollen-bearing trees and perennials - and we also organized the exchange of seeds and seedlings of melliferous shrubs, perennials and trees, such as bee-tree (Tetradium daniellii) and golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata), in a self-organised way.

Slovenia is among the European countries which are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and the long-term forecast for Ljubljana is particularly critical... so improving conditions for all pollinators in the city is an urgent matter!
10. Building international partnerships
At the end of June, an international symposium was held in the South Korean capital, where we had the honour to meet experts from a number of Asian countries, encounter urban beekeeping colleagues from Seoul, exchange professional experiences, present the work of our association and make new friends. It was an extremely valuable experience, thanks to the many years of successful activities of the whole team at the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Seoul.

Towards the end of 2024, we were invited to Darkhan, the "second capital" of Mongolia, to take part in the Darkhan Resilient City Forum, the first organised cooperation project between EU and Mongolian regional institutions. A memorandum of agreement on further cooperation in the field of beekeeping was also signed.
+ New items in our online shop
Our online shop is expanding: we have added a handy portable gas vaporizer (sublimator) for oxalic acid ecological treatment against varroa mites, developed by Dejan Pečnik and Damir Škraban, and Damir was also the winner of the 2023 competition for the best domestic technological solutions in beekeeping.
Bee health, permanent education and support for an eco-organic approach to beekeeping will continue to be our top priority.
We hope that our work with a sustainable approach to bees and other pollinators in town will contribute to a better and more pleasant environment for all of us. We invite you to join our activities, information about which is available on this site and on our official Facebook page; If you are a taxpayer in Slovenia, you can also help us at a personal level or as an institution by donating the fixed percentage of your income tax you are allowed to allocate to a charity of your choice to our cause (costing you nothing, meaning a great deal to us), or you can choose to support our work symbolically by joining the Urban Beekeepers’ Association as one of our members. Many thanks!
Wishing you lots of happiness and a healthy & successful 2025 – and Naj medi! (May the honey flow!)
Gorazd Trušnovec, translated by Gregor Timothy Čeh