The Spreading of Particular types of Bee-Hives in Yugoslavia and the Attempt to Determine their relative Antiquity on our Territory

Transformation of culture, although modern in investigation of the present moment, is not only the speciality of our time. Every great change of historical period was in fact a cultural change. In the past this process was very slow because the patterns did not reach all the people so quickly as to-day the west-european and American civilization does by means of TV, film and press. These new processes did not extend themselves everywhere the same, because somewhere the old, even the ancient, persisted up to now. Such very important historical events took place on our territory and manifested itself in some forms of bee-hives. In the Mediterranean and some parts belonging to the old megalith culture, stone hives made out of stone blocks were built into a stone wall. To-day such hives are known in the Baleares (Spain), Apulia (Italy) and on Brač and Hvar. Such had the old Romans too. Keeping the bee-hives in walls is not a rarity (Mediterranean, Orient). This particular way of keeping bees reminds us of bee boles, niches in stone fences or walls of houses from the 15th - 18th century in England and on the Isle of Man. Before these stone hives, much simpler forms can be found in our country. There is a custom in preparing niches on the banks of rivers or in cliffs where wild bees come to swarm. People then take such swarms home and in this way the number of their bee-hives increase. This custom dominates in Macedonia and similar niches in stone are known in the parts around Obrovac. Something similar existed among the Čeramis on Volga Bee-hives in tree trunks are very ancient. The honey is collected from the bottom of the trunk and such bee-hives are known in the whole of the Roman Europe. The Slavs accepted this form probably because of its simple form and simple handling, and that\u27s why we can explain its general expansion; while the Slavic form, the trunk bee-hive with a door opposite the flight of the bees, is rarely mentioned. Bee-hives in the form of standing boxes, show the same expansion as trunk bee-hives. The speciality of both in Dalmatia is a stone tile roof. In Slovenia such wooden boxes, in a horizontal line, completely belong to the alpen cultural areal and represents the youngest form of bee-hives in the Alps; they are thought to be late Roman origin. No doubt the custom of keeping bees in stave vessels in northern Dalmatia belongs to the Roman influence which appeared after 1st century A.D. Bee hives weaved from twigs, in the past existed in the whole country. In Panonia they were displaced with the straw weaved hives which came to our parts from the middle Europe through Hungary, and the Government of the Military Border intensively worked on their expansion

Traditonal economy in Baranja

Ovaj rad je rađen na temelju materijala koji je sabran u Upitnicama Etnološkog atlasa Jugoslavije i pohranjen u arhivu Centra za etnološku kartografiju Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu. Rad je ograničen na neke elemente u poljodjelstvu. Prikazane su sličnosti i razlike u pojedinim elementima gospodarstva među istraživanim naseljima. Posebna pažnja pridavana je nazivlju, upotrebljavanome, kako za alat i njegove dijelove, tako i za pojedine poslove.Many older cultural elements have been preserved till today as some marginal parts of economy and the older names for some details are now used for some new industrial products. It is possible to find out many things of a region\u27s older culture by doing a research in preserved cultural (especially economical) elements. In the region of Baranja many people still remember the old ways of agriculture. Baranja\u27s agriculture had the Panonian cattle-breeding as its supplement Of course, there were also vineyards. The economy of Baranja differs from village to village. There is no precise classification in terms of similarity of economy, although the villages near Hungary have a higher degree of same elements. The village of Kopačevo is more archaic in terms of agriculture than other villages. We have also marked each cultural term or element which appears in our Questionnaires. If we do not have an element registered, it does not mean that it did not exist. Very often the answers given by the Questionnaire depended on the enquirer and the reliable informant In all the villages except Zmajevac the main source of economy was agriculture, and in Zmajevac it was viticulture. Immediately before this war started, our economy has changed, eg. the village of Kopačevo was known as main vegetable supplier of Osijek. Because of its important role, the village became richer and the whole way of life has changed. Similar changes have happened in all the villages of Baranja