Croatian Honey Tasting & Propolis Sales!

Our family beekeeping tradition began in 1977 with a discovery in the deep forests of Novska. At just 12 years old, Dubravko Draganić stumbled upon a wild bee colony thriving inside a hollow tree. Recognizing the incredible value of these resilient forest bees, he returned with his father, Dragutin Draganić, to carefully hive them into a traditional woven skep (pletara). By the following year, they had introduced two more skeps, establishing localized colonies with a clear, foundational goal: to support natural pollination across the neighborhood's private gardens and the diverse crop fields stretching behind every home, while gathering pure, unaltered honey for the community. Following the passing of Grandfather Dragutin, those resilient original colonies—which had grown to just over 20 beehives—served as the vital biological foundation for our multi-generational apiary. Today, master beekeeper Dubravko Draganić has carefully scaled and nurtured this biological inheritance to over 150 thriving colonies. We reject standard, mass-produced commercial equipment. In our apiary, quality begins with the forest itself. Utilizing his professional expertise in forestry, Dubravko personally identifies and sources exceptional fallen or felled trees. Our direct neighbor mills these hand-selected logs into custom planks at his local sawmill, which we then naturally air-dry for several years. Every single hive body and internal structural frame is built by hand from this very seasoned wood by Dubravko and his son, Domagoj Draganić. Precision Migratory Beekeeping & Conservation Domagoj mastered this rigorous physical craft from an early age—shaping the timber, assembling frames, threading structural retention wires, and managing extraction workflows. Rather than keeping the colonies stationary, we practice true migratory beekeeping to capture the purest botanical signatures. We custom-refitted a specialized transport vehicle to safely house and move 56 of our handmade hives directly into the field. By tracking seasonal blooms, we transport this mobile apiary across pristine national parks, protected wetlands, and isolated territories—situated, at times, over 50 kilometers away from the closest paved road. This extreme geographical isolation shields our foraging bees from public infrastructure and agricultural runoff, allowing them to gather elite monofloral honey in entirely untouched wilderness. The remaining colonies are meticulously maintained across two distinct, permanent backup locations. These baseline apiaries serve a vital ecological and communal purpose: we utilize them to support the local beekeeping community by selling strong, healthy colonies to regional beekeepers who suffer devastating losses during the harsh winter months. Domagoj now handles the family's direct import and distribution infrastructure in the Netherlands, ensuring a completely authentic, unbroken, and traceable chain from the apiary directly to Dutch consumers. The Law of the First Harvest To guarantee an uncompromising standard of purity, we deliberately withhold the very first floral honey harvest of the spring season. This initial yield naturally contains overwintering reserves and internal hive maintenance components. Instead of extracting it for market, we leave this entire harvest undisturbed in the hives as sustenance for the bees. This rigorous selection protocol ensures that our subsequent monofloral market collections represent entirely pure, unadulterated nectar signatures.