An overview of the Urban Beekeeping Year 2025 in 12 pictures
We have had an excellent year, with weather conditions favorable for beekeeping and results exceeding our initial ambitions. As always, we have no shortage of ideas, plans, and hopes for the future. Perhaps this is because we continue to have a youthful and gender-balanced membership ... As we bid farewell to the 2025, let us look back on some of the more important milestones.
1. Opening of painted beehives in Švicarija
Silvester Plotajs Sicoe painted two beehives on the terrace of the MGLC-Švicarija exhibition and artist's residence building in the heart of Tivoli Park; the new image of the beehives refers to both the old Slovenian tradition of painted beehive panels and the ornamentation of the building itself.
The "permanently exhibited" beehives (as functional objects - honeybee dwellings) have thus become a work of art and a public installation entitled Don't Worry - Be Happy, whereby their placement not only serves as a call to care for pollinators, but also adds value to the space with their visual appeal. You can buy honey from these two hives at the MGLC gift shop.
2. The work of the Urban Beekeepers' Association presented at EXPO in Osaka
The vision of the Expo2025 world exhibition in Osaka was to create a platform for shaping a sustainable society of the future, in which people, technology, and nature coexist in harmony. We are grateful and honored to have had the opportunity to present ourselves at the Slovenian exhibition space in October 2025.
We presented our work and projects, offered honey tastings, and demonstrated an advanced beekeeping scale with an AI support developed by our member Miha Finžgar (Senso4s) and his team. This wonderful event, which was also in line with the theme of Expo 2025 – "Designing Future Society for Our Lives" – received an excellent response from the audience, who rewarded all the effort that had gone into it.
3. Farewell to our honorary member Ljubo Struna
At the beginning of August, Ljubo Struna (1930-2025), a legend of Slovenian film production and a passionate beekeeper, sadly passed away. At the age of 95, with his beehives in the Murgle neighborhood of Ljubljana, he was probably the oldest active urban beekeeper in the world. We will remember him for his profound calmness and exceptionally warm personality.
This year, a team that also works with the BBC, dedicated a short documentary portrait to him. Goodbye, Ljubo, and thank you for all the experiences you shared with us during our pleasant moments together!
4. We learned how to make a Snelgrove board
In the Woodworking Lab at the Rog Center creative hub, our member, master carpenter and beekeeper Dejan Pečnik, led a workshop in which each participant learned how to make their own Snelgrove board, an extremely useful tool for working with Langstroth hives, including for splitting the colonies and preventing swarming.
The board or partition with some ingenious details by Dejan Pečnik, which participants were able to take home, will also serve as a practical template for making additional copies as needed.
5. Presentation at Apimondia in Copenhagen
Two of our members took part in the program of the 49th Apimondia - World Beekeeping Congress in Copenhagen. Gorazd Trušnovec's presentation was accepted (as one of the few on the topic of pollinators in cities) into the professional program, while Damir Škraban entered two inventive products - a beehive scale and a portable oxalic acid vaporizer - into the World Beekeeping Award competition.
We feel honoured, of course! It was also great to meet with urban beekeeping colleagues in the Danish capital and visit the headquarters of their organization, Bybi, and exchange experiences and views on cooperation in interdisciplinary, socially responsible, and scientific research projects.
6. Field trip to Kamnik and its surroundings
For our yearly excursion, we relied on our "internal resources" and had a wonderful time; the trip to Kamnik and its surroundings was organized by a local member, Darja Jenko, and the main point of interest was the At Vodiskar's tourist farm, where our member, eco-certified beekeeper Iris Golob, produces organic delicacies and maintains an exceptional archaeological and ethnological collection.
In addition, in the heart of medieval Kamnik, we learned about the history of wax products and made our own candles with apitherapist Robert. Over a fish lunch, we learned about the skills of fish husbandry, visited the Carnica queen bee breeding station in Kopišča, and walked to Plečnik's hunting lodge in Kamniška Bistrica... It was delightful!
7. Award nomination for the translation of the novel "The Year the Bees Came"
Our member Renata Zamida was nominated for the Fabjan Hafner Award 2025 for her translation of the wonderful youth beekeeping novel Das Jahr, als die Bienen kamen! The awards were presented in Klagenfurt (Austria) as part of the Buch9020 festival. We congratulate the translator and beekeeping apprentice on joining such an excellent company!
The translation of the book by German author Petra Postert, The Year the Bees Came, was published jointly by KUD Sodobnost & the Urban Beekeepers' Association of Slovenia and is mostly sold out, but a few copies are still available on our website.
8. We are delighted with the members' progress
Former Buddhist monk and university-educated psychologist Monishankar Singha has successfully completed the Apitherapy I program and obtained an official licence & national vocational certification as apitherapist. The title of his final thesis was Advantages and Challenges of an Apitherapy Center in an Urban Environment.
The family beekeeping business of our members Bojana and Marko Petrinjak has expanded with several transport units; in 2025, they embarked on a professional career in beekeeping. Congratulations and best wishes for success to all!
9. A bear visiting the prison
In 2025, bees were not only of interest to participants in our educational project Empowering Imprisoned Persons Through Beekeeping, which has been running since 2020 in the open ward of the men's prison on the outskirts of Ljubljana, but a bear also decided to "inspect the hives" during a night visit in the summer ...
The result of the bear visits (it actually came twice): one destroyed honeybee colony and the installation of an electric perimeter fence. Nevertheless, the season was excellent, and under the practical guidance of our vice-president Franc Petrovčič, we still managed to extract 60 kg of top-quality rare, silver fir honeydew honey from the three remaining hives.
10. First awards for eco-certified urban honey from Ljubljana
A decade ago, we could only dream of being able to practice certified organic beekeeping in our cities, just like our colleagues in Berlin and elsewhere. Today (or rather, after the adaptation to EU legislation in 2023), eco/organic honey from Ljubljana is already winning awards!
At the Biol Miel international eco-certified honey competition in Bari (Italy), forest/honeydew honey and linden/lime tree honey from two Ljubljana districts were ranked among the best in 2025 out of 228 samples submitted by participants from Algeria to Lithuania! They thus joined the bronze medals awarded by AGRA, our most important agricultural competition, for linden/lime tree honey from the hives in front of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
11. (Urban) beekeeping in Ethiopia
This year, we continued to work intensively on establishing and maintaining international partnerships. In May, our president Gorazd Trušnovec was invited to Jimma (Ethiopia) as the Slovenian representative to the FAO Second International forum for action on sustainable beekeeping and pollination.
A month later, on the initiative of Ambassador Kristina Radej, two urban apiaries were opened in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa as part of Slovenian bee diplomacy, one in a Peacock Park in the city center (pictured) and the other at the don Bosco Children Center, where the apiaries were also built from scratch. A great achievement!
12. St. Nicholas brought Henry's lime trees
On the night of December 6, probably already thinking about the new season, St. Nicholas brought Henry's lime tree seedlings (Tilia henryana) to the association's headquarters. This linden/lime tree is rare in Slovenia and special in that it blooms long and profusely in early autumn, when there is already a shortage of food for bees and other pollinators in the nature.
The association organized the purchase, and the sturdy seedlings were financed by the members themselves. We are extremely proud to have members who, through persistent planting of melliferous trees and perennials, care for the well-being of all pollinators in their environment!
We believe that our work with a sustainable approach to bees and other pollinators in the city contributes to a better and more pleasant environment for everyone. We invite you to join our activities, which we announce here and on our official Facebook page. You can help us by donating part of your income tax if you're a Slovenian citizen (it costs you nothing, but means a lot to us!), or you can show your support by joining the Urban Beekeeper's Association of Slovenia. Thank you very much!
Thank you for your support - wishing you all the best in 2026!
Gorazd Trušnovec