The guiding principle that accompanied our work on the album "Hives and Apiaries in Poland was an attempt to show the atmosphere and magic round the craft of beekeeping within the scope of its long history.
The Beekeeping Estate "Sadecki Bartnik" (Sacz Beeman) runs an extensive beekeeping business. There are about 1000 bee colonies in our apiaries. All bee products with our logo make their way to numerous Polish and foreign consumers.
A few years ago we founded the publishing house "Sacz Beeman" ("Sadecki Bartnik"). We have published more than ten books on the history and science of beekeeping as well as on practical beekeeping. The Publishing House studio produces documentaries for beekeepers. Since July 2000 we have also engaged in museum activity. Near the seat of our company in Stróze (the Malopolska Province) we have opened a beekeeping heritage park exhibiting a large historuc collection of hives, beekeeping equipment and an archival library of Polish beekeeping publications. We are also involved with the Polish Beekeeping Association - an organisation gathering about fifty thousand beekeepers from from all over Poland. Since 1995 we have been regularly taking part in API-EXPO exhibitions organised by the APIMONDIA International Federation of Beekeeping Associations. We have been to Lausanne, Antwerp, Vancouver and Durban. It was there that we could observe the achievements of world beekeeping and we successfully promoted Polish membership of world beekeeping family.
We would like our album "Hives and Apiaries in Poland" to find readers outside beekeeping circles as well. This is why we adopted an essay-like format. We are convicted that any reflection on the beekeeping world is also a reflection on the history of culture in general, and is as such an aesthetic experience.
