Jan Dzierżon Museum in Kluczbork

Cars drive right underneath the museum building in Kluczbork: in 1931–1932 part of the old castle's ground floor was demolished so a street could run beneath it. Inside is something even more unusual — the Oder bee tree, a fragment of a hollowed-out forest beehive pulled from the bed of the Oder and dated to the 10th century, one of the oldest beekeeping relics in Poland and in Europe. The museum is named after Fr Jan Dzierżon (1811–1906), who discovered parthenogenesis in bees and laid the foundations of modern beekeeping.

History: from ducal manor to water tower

A ducal manor stood here at the end of the 13th century, and the first brick castle probably went up at the end of the 14th. In 1590 the dukes of Brzeg built a two-storey building with Gothic windows; a century later the castle had fallen into ruin, and in 1720 it was rebuilt as the administrative seat of Kluczbork's imperial estates. A second storey was added in 1854, housing first a tax office and then courts. The building's foundations and ground floor continue the line of the town's defensive wall, fragments of which adjoin the tower. In 1907 the old castle tower was turned into a water tower with a two-tier pyramid roof.

The museum opened in 1959 as a branch of the Museum of Opole Silesia and became an independent regional museum in 1962. Its collections cover the archaeology, history and ethnography of the Kluczbork area, but its calling card is beekeeping, collected from all over Poland.

What to see

• "Beekeeping Old and New" — an exhibition running from the Oder bee tree to log hives (upright and horizontal), straw skeps and beekeeping tools from different parts of Poland. Look out for the figural hives carved as saints from southern Opole Silesia.
• The patron's room — hives from Dzierżon's apiaries in Łowkowice (a twin hive) and Karłowice (a four-colony hive), his furniture, books, diplomas, medals and laurel wreaths.
• Contemporary figural hives in the pavilion in front of the building — sculpted hives made in the 1970s and 1980s by folk artists and amateur carvers from across the country.
• The open-air hive display on the green behind the museum, laid out in 2006 among nectar-rich plants; entry is free.

Who was Jan Dzierżon?

He was born on 16 January 1811 in Łowkowice near Kluczbork into a Polish farming family. For more than three decades (1835–1868) he was parish priest in Karłowice near Brzeg, where he studied bees alongside his pastoral work. He built a dismantlable box hive, used top bars with a starter strip of comb, and discovered parthenogenesis in bees. In 1872 the University of Munich awarded him an honorary doctorate. He died in 1906 and is buried in the cemetery at Łowkowice.

Tripto tips

The museum is at ul. Zamkowa 10, right by the north-east corner of the market square. According to its website it opens Tuesday–Friday 10:00–16:00 and Sunday 10:00–14:00, with last entry to the exhibitions 30 minutes before closing. A standard ticket costs PLN 10, a reduced one PLN 5. Allow about an hour for the indoor rooms and the outdoor hives; give yourself longer if you want a proper look at the pavilion of figural hives.