The aim of the paper is to introduce the audience to the unusual exhibits of the Museum of Ancient Beekeeping, which was founded in 1974 on the territory of a national park in the north-eastern part of Lithuania. This kind of museum could hardly have existed in Lithuania if Bronius Kazlas, an agronomist (born in the village of Yauru, Moletsky district, in 1936), had not started his working career here in the same year. Since his childhood he had been living side by side with bees, as his father had an apiary with 30-40 swarms of bees. He himself started working in the apiary when he was only 15 years old. The teenager's mind and imagination were developed and influenced by books, especially descriptions of geographical discoveries and travels, and no wonder he developed the following idea in his head, "What will there be for me to discover when I grow up, as everything in the world has already been discovered". It was dreams that helped him to understand and see his predestination, and his life creed was formulated as follows, "I will become a dream investigator. Here you can find unknown worlds". B. Kazlas was not satisfied with the materialistic perception of the world. He independently studied philosophy and different religions of the world. The formation of his world view was mostly influenced by the studies of eastern religions directing the spiritual perfection of man, as well as the animalistic theory of E. B. Tylor, a British anthropologist.

B. Kazlas was dreaming of sharing his spiritual cognition with other people and at the age of 38, starting his career as a nature protection official in the national park, he had the idea of establishing a `Museum of Man's Spiritual Secrets'. In the Soviet period the very thought itself seemed improper enough, not to mention its implementation. So B. Kazlas suggested the management founding a museum of beekeeping, sowing honey plants, plant roses and, in beautiful surroundings, show the tourists a `bee paradise'. The authorities took liking to this innocent idea, and in 1984, 10 hectares of wasteland was placed at the disposal of the museum.

B. Kazlas started to collect exhibits suitable for the museum, i.e., beehives cut out of a tree trunk, movable-frame hives, honey separators, and other bee-keeping supplies, testifying to the status of farm beekeeping in the 20^th century. He decided to display at the museum the whole history of beekeeping since the time when bees were still living in primeval forests, in tree hollows, from which honeycomb was hanging out and honey was dripping (Photo 1). You just had to go to the forest and cut out the honeycomb (Photo 2). A legend says that when people started to smoke the bees out of tree hollows and cut out honeycomb, the bees turned to their god Praam²is, asking him to give them the power to kill people with a sting. Praamz^is answered, "If you sting a human being, you will die yourself" (the morale being, "He who digs a pit for another will fall into it himself"). People started to take care of bees, made flight boards for them (in the 10^th century nearly 70 per cent of the territory of Lithuania was covered by forests), and this kind of primitive beekeeping became a profitable occupation. Farmers, however, had a serious competitor - the bear (the last bear was shot dead in 1888). The lord of manor - the owner of the forest - also felt a desire for apicultural products. Therefore they were used to pay impost during feudalism (Photo 3), and, as for the export of honey and beeswax, Lithuania ranked first in Europe. However, forests were thinned out as timber was also a valuable export article, and in the 16^th century a transfer to farm beekeeping took place in Lithuania. Beehives with flight boards moved from the forest nearer to farmhouses. On farmsteads it was easier to catch the swarm; to do this, bells were rung or water was sprinkled (Photo 4).

Beekeepers were usually people of older generation (Photo 5), who had more patience and time to take care of bees. In addition to that, elderly people had more practical and spiritual experience, and, contemplating the circulation of life, they often compared the commune of bees with the commune of people. Obviously it is much more difficult for people to live a harmonious life than it is for bees, because of their vices - envy, laziness, low morale, and so on. Elderly beekeepers were similar to bees - they were fond of work, exact, had harmonious relationships with family members, neighbours, and friends, did not envy anybody, did not gossip or swear, and therefore served as an example of wisdom for those surrounding them. It was believed that it was only to reasonable people that bees brought honey, but beekeepers had to share this god-sent gift with other people.

Reflecting upon bees and their origin, the aim of their existence might be the religious perception of God. In spiritual folk culture bees have close associations with the transcendental, the holiness. The founder of the Museum of Beekeeping realized it very well and decided to show at the museum that the forefathers of Lithuanians had had the correct spiritual understanding of the divine origin of natural phenomena: earth, water, fire, bees, and man.

The divine origin of the bee is shown in three sculptures in the museum exposition. The first one depicts an Egyptian myth (Photo 6): Ra, the God of Sun, looking down at the Earth, saw that the people had forgotten all about God and were behaving in an undignified manner. Seeing this, tears started running down his cheeks. But the God's kindness to people became manifest in the fact that his tears turned into bees, who brought honey to people.

The second sculpture is dedicated to a myth of American Red Indians (Photo 7). A young Red Indian decided to go to the forest to look for a hollow in the tree with bees in it. He finally found it and started cutting it out with an ax. And then he heard a woman's voice saying from the hollow, "Cut carefully, or else you hurt me". He cut the hollow open and saw a girl of divine beauty under the honeycomb. The young man asked the girl to come and live with him. She agreed, but only on one condition: he had to keep her name secret. It was Maba, the spirit of honey, who had turned into a girl. The young man brought the girl and the honey to his wigwam, and organized a feast for the whole tribe. Maba made honey drink. It did not matter how much the guests drank it, the drink did not diminish anyway. The news of the beautiful girl travelled wide and people gathered to see her, and everybody was treated to honey drink. But suddenly the drink finished. The young man, forgetting his promise, started calming the guests, "Don't worry. Maba will make some more". As soon as he had uttered the girl's name, she started disappearing and turned into a bee. The myth shows us the connection between the bee and the woman.

The third sculpture depicts God Praamz^is (Photo 8) who is looking at the Earth from high above on a hot summer day and sees a ploughman working, sweating all over his face. And Praam²is created the hard-working bee by the example of this hard-working ploughman. Each bead of his sweat turned into a bee. They flew into the forest, settled in tree hollows and started gathering honey.

In folk beliefs bees had their patrons: God Bubilas and Goddess Austeja. Bubilas (Photo 9) was a fat man with a sweet tooth, and he symbolized the spirit of the drone, the fertilizer of bees. Honey was sacrificed to Bubilas by breaking a jug with it, and this rite was accompanied by loud cries.

Goddess Austeja is known from the times of gatherers and hunters. This goddess was the patron of bees and also flowers, from which bees collected nectar. The cult of this goddess flourished up to the 16^th century. The name Austeja originates from the words austi, audeja (weave, weaver), i.e., to fly quickly, collect nectar, make honeycomb. It is thought that in people's minds Goddess Austeja had the shape of a bee. The festivities dedicated to Austeja were arranged in the middle of August (Dunduliene 1989: 30-32). In the museum there are two sculptures of the goddess (Photos 10, 11) and a small chapel with an altar. Beekeepers were supposed to sacrifice honey and beeswax to her to keep the bees alive and multiply successfully. The honey sacrificed was tasted by Krivis (the chief priest of the ancient Balts, the protector of the sacred fire, the performer of religious rites and funerals) and distributed to people.

The newly-weds will not miss the chance to visit the Museum of Beekeeping in their wedding route. Here the suite is met by Krivis (B. Kazlas) and Goddess Austeja (his wife Birute). Krivis has the symbol of his spiritual power - krivule. During the festive rite celebrating the beginning of the common life of the spouses, Krivis uses the product of the bees' work blessed by God - honey - and also fire and water as symbols for the perception of holiness. Krivis and Goddess Austeja perform their sacramental rites in the open air.

By tradition, when a daughter-in-law comes into the family of a beekeeper, she is given a bunch of flowers and honeycomb with honey in it. If bees sit on the honey and honeycomb, it means they accept her. But they accept only good and kind people. Krivis smears the lips of the young couple with honey and they kiss. Then they are given a barrel of honey as a remembrance of the day and also for the future, in case something goes wrong in their life. Then they can smear their lips with honey, kiss each other, recall the happy beginning of their life together, and love, tenderness, and sweetness will return to them.

Goddess Austeja gives the young man flowers and lights a candle, which both of them hold as a symbol of unanimity and the fire of their hearts.

Krivis surrounds the young couple with the smoke of the sacred pagan fire. There are girls - vestals - standing at the sacrificial place and keeping the sacred fire burning. Young girls consider it as a great honour to be asked to act as vestals.

A jug of holy water is brought from the spring. The young couple drinks the water sweetened with honey. Barefoot, the young man has to carry his would-be wife through the river. Judging by the behavior of the girl, the audience is trying to guess what kind of wife she will make.

A lot of space in the museum has been saved for the symbolics of the Sun (Photo 12). The visitors are explained that the Sun in the form of light penetrates into the ground; its light, producing warmth, makes seeds develop into trees, and wood, when burning in flames (Photo 13) again turns into light and returns into space. This is a phenomenon, but the core point is that the origin of both light and fire in the universe is divine. Fire is the god of light in the lower meaning.

Inside the museum buildings beekeeping supplies have been displayed, but not only these. Here we can see a grand oak worshipped in the ancient times, the rite of sacrificing honey for a postmortal journey, a beekeeper with his mates feasting at beehives.

When rumours reached the ears of the party leaders about the island of spirituality in the middle of the forest, where visitors were told about God and spiritual things (that was quite equal to the propaganda of idealistic philosophy), and that the slogan "We appeal to you, God Praamz^is, to stand up for us and to protect us from the evil princes" (Photo 14) could have been understood as anti-Soviet propaganda, KGB took interest in the founder of the museum and on the initiative of the Communist Party, B. Kazlas was suggested a transfer to a "safer" job, i.e., to become a meteorologist. B. Kazlas was forced to give up working at the museum, and, at his personal request, left the national park.

At the beginning of perestroika B. Kazlas was asked to return to the museum, first as a worker and later on as director. It was then that a beehive with an inscription `Here lives the spirit of giants' appeared at the museum. It testifies that the basis for man's endurance and his creative work is the SPIRIT, and that THE SPIRIT IS THE CORE OF THE UNIVERSE, that each object and custom, and actually the whole life on the Earth is the manifestation of the SPIRIT. And the bard lauds the God and sings his praises (Photo 15).

Nowadays the museum has seven bee swarms. They live in different beehives (Photo 16). The staff of the museum consists of three people: its founder, the cashier (and guide), and a worker. The museum works from May 1 to October 15. Each year about 10,000 people visit the museum.

On behalf of Bronius Kazlas, Head of the museum, I would like to invite all the participants of the conference to the museum so that you could see everything with your own eyes. The sculptures in the museum designed by B. Kazlas are created by Teofilis Poteinas and Ipolitas U²kurnis.

It would be interesting to know how museum workers evaluate the untraditional exhibits of the Museum of Ancient Beekeeping and if they can be considered as exhibits in the accepted meaning of the word.