The enchanting Mostaičiai apiary, where honey flows in rivers

There are quite a few different apiaries in the country, but the one created by Dalė from Gargždi and Gintautas Grigaičiai of bright memory together with the families of their three daughters – Giedrė, Alina and Jūrate in the village of Didžijės Mostaičiai, if you could find similar units in all of Lithuania. In the apiary, which has been operating for the second decade, honey is currently produced by over two and a half hundred families of bees, the current one of its main managers, Giedrė Grigaitytė-Indrašienė, was born in 2011. The “Farmer’s Advisor” was awarded the title of “Queen of Bees”, and the product was awarded the national product quality mark for exceptional quality. Last year, the Kuliai township awarded the “Farm of the Year” award to the Grigaičiai apiary.

When knowledge and desires merge
In this kingdom of bees, where the apiary is constantly flying, it is the tricolor of Lithuania, in addition to honey and various other products – everything to the brim. There is also a museum with rare exhibits of ancient beekeeping, contrasts of contrasts – a spacious and modern lecture class in an old shed with modern equipment that takes you into the mysterious world of bees. And where are all the stories, these days the new word for “education” is called the events that were invented by my mother, the educator Dalė. More specifically, her status as a beekeeper’s wife and amateur beekeeper once automatically placed her on the beekeeping lecture track, as colleagues at school kept asking children to tell them about bees. This is how a whole cycle of stories was born, in which the sisters and Giedrė’s husband Marius joined. Now the whole family team already has a beehive outfit. Even the female dog Dūzgė contributes to the life of the homestead, happily sitting and frolicking among the guests.
Further along the pine forest stands the apitherapy house started by Gintautos, the “life of bees” or a special glass beehive for demonstration, an old cloon for holidays, rest and children to sit on pressed straw benches when they are tired with a small shop of honey and various other delicacies of this kind in the corner of the cloon.
The Christmas trees have grown and are raising their heads, from which the future labyrinth of a couple of hectares has been planted. Wherever the eye catches your eye – any interesting thing, flowers or old tools brought from the village, and the guests who will start flocking here next month will be greeted by a new gazebo built by Marius to hide from the rain or the north, a newly dug pond and a playground. After all, the most frequent guests here are children. Giedrė said that sometimes several tours arrive during the day, full of busloads of curious people and their parents. He never answers, accepts everyone who visits, even if he has no energy at all.
Further on, in the woods, sheep are diligently mowing the grass, the cobblestones perched under an oak tree invite you to sit down and rest, or perhaps to think about how many ideas, perseverance and work are needed until such corners of rest and knowledge appear, which improve and become more beautiful every year.

Happy coincidences
Everything has its own story, the beehive does too, and not by coincidence. The first and most important is the transformation of a photographer into a beekeeper. The future founder of the apiary, Gintautas Grigaitis, saw a confused swarm of bees while taking photographs many years ago, which became his reward for the photos taken and the beginning of the entire beekeeping epic, which later became the “Gintautas Grigaitis apiary”. The family did not change the name even after the death of the founder. Beekeeping has become not only a job, but also a way of life for the whole family, and maybe even for future generations.
If Gintautas still woke up beetles in the spring, he would tell many funny stories. No one had to see him angry, nor did he know how to get tired. He even said about his pets that he wouldn’t have any angry, stinging bees. The apiary is mainly inhabited by hardworking and peaceful bees of the Bakfast species, and Giedrė still breeds their queens. Whether he was tired or engrossed in work, the owner found time for everyone who visited his apiary, knew how to joke, put everyone in a good mood, patiently showed and explained the secrets of the world of bees. Maybe that’s why his own life dissolved so quickly, unexpectedly and prematurely.
This year, the year of exiles and political prisoners, if Gintautas was not already in the gardens of paradise, he would probably be able to tell a lot not only about the world of bees, but also about the Krasnoyarsk region, which is his homeland. His father, a pilgrim from Eržvilkas, received a 10-year exile for thinking that he heard that “it doesn’t matter what Lithuania will be, green or red, it is important that it be free”. When he found himself in the Krasnoyarsk region, he worked in the forest, sawing conifers, and where you have been a forester will not know how to do such a job. The local authorities were amazed at his abilities, and even took him to the exhibition. The future mother of Gintautas, who came from Medsėdžii, also worked in the forest. If it weren’t for the various twists and turns of life, Gintautas’ parents probably wouldn’t have even met.
Exile changed the fate of Gintautas’s wife Dale’s grandparents and mother. Her noble grandmother, sensing what awaited the family after the Soviets took over, had agreed with her husband that he would somehow avoid exile and support the exiled family to survive the horrors of exile. Survived. Living in freedom today, we can only enjoy what we have and at least for a moment remember those who were robbed of the meaning and hope of life, everything that was most precious was taken away.

The ancient Žemaitsa homestead enchanted
Another chance brought Grigaičius to the remote village of Didžijų Mostaičius, located on the border of Plungė and Klaipėda districts. Once invited by an acquaintance from this village, Grigaičiai brought some of the bee families here. They didn’t even think they would find their dream homestead for beekeeping outside the Pekla woods. For the sake of justice, it should be said that Grigaičiai probably did not discover their dream, but the village – the hope to recover and survive with the newly arriving people.
A centuries-old foresters’ village untouched by collectivization and land reclamation, in which, as Giedrė noticed, there are not even plots of land, a classic of the old wooden village architecture that has stood for almost two hundred years – a large wooden farmhouse with two ends, which no one builds anymore. There is also a huge garden, forests around, and detached houses scattered in their thickets – an idyll.
Dalė Grigaitienė remembers: standing in the middle of the snow in winter, looking around, dazzlingly white, beautiful – a true dream. They bought that dream. With a good amount of old meadows and forest. Giedrė’s husband, Marius Indrašius, originally from Rokiškis, but already used to Žemaitija, a professional gardener, joked that now he would greet the arriving guests with a straw hat and wooden clogs. Laughter after joke, Grigaičiai later found out that there was a famous clog maker in that village, and they knew how to weave straw hats here. Well, Marius from Rokiškė soon fell asleep – it’s nice, it’s nice, but my God, how much work is there! In fact, the old garden and huge trees stood unpruned, some diseased, withered and tired from time. While the house was crying, it needed at least a little repair, everywhere you look, the owner’s hardworking and caring hand was missing during the time that passed in vain. But the eyes are scary, the hands are workers, everyone got down to work.
Marius is the kind of man who doesn’t carry a bottle or a pack of cigarettes in his pocket, but a secator. He drives a tractor and hammers, cuts, installs, sows and harrows. And he not only does work for himself, but also helps the people of the village as much as he can. It cuts the hay, plows the soil, smoothes the potholed road. Grateful villagers call him “beekeeper” out of sight.

The non-royal life of the “Queen Bee”.
Having graduated from beekeeping at the Academy of Agriculture, Giedrė works day and night during the season. Because you have to work hard at night, when the resting bees are transported from one place of collecting nectar to another. If you wander somewhere picking berries or mushrooms in the rural forests, you will often meet Giedrė visiting the bees, who is not afraid to be alone either in dense forests or in distant fields, she jokes that she is used to working alone, sometimes accompanied by her dog Dūzgė.
Giedrė, the mother of two beautiful, curious daughters, also never refuses to help, whenever she finds a minute, she visits and advises everyone who tries to keep bees themselves or wants help with another hive they already have. He always greets the person he meets and asks how he is doing. For some time, Giedrė carefully wrote a diary, in which he noted both meteorological observations and the affairs of bee families. But there is not much time left to describe hundreds of bee families, so if there is anything, it is only the change of weather.
Soon, huge tourist buses will roll down the dusty road of Mostaičiai again.
If it were not for that happy coincidence, today the images of the village of Mostaičiai and the memories from the impressive trip to the apiary would not be flying not only in Lithuania, but also abroad, and the languages ​​of different countries of the world would not be heard in the homestead. Everyone who comes here is amazed by the calmness and extraordinary aura. Once you’ve been here, you want to come back again.

Daiva ŚREBALIUTĖ

Personal archive photo.