The Golden Honey Feast Blessed Ritual Honey Kit Deluxe

Description

On Aug 14th the Honey Feast begins and beekeepers honour their bees, the harvested honey would be consecrated to give it healing and magical powers. During Spases it is forbidden to quarrel, have negative emotions or hold grudges. The Honey Spas, also named the First Savior, Honey Savior or the Savior of the Honey Feast. It is also the holiday Maccabeus, or honey-poppy Spas, Makoviya. Spas in Ukraine means ’savior’ and the ‘Spases’ are three folk holidays celebrated in August marking the end of summer. Ukrainians gathered near rivers and lakes, ate honey, and sang songs together. The consecration of bouquets, honey, and fruits would happen to give them healing powers and it was believed that the first spoon of honey eaten had magical powers. During Spases it is forbidden to quarrel, have negative emotions and grudges, instead you have to help people.

Honey Spas, in Ukrainian it reads “Medovy Spas” is traditionally the time to collect the late-summer honey. This is the end of summer and you have to start storing products for winter. Makoviya is one of the most poetic and most respectful in Ukraine. On this day people bless water, flowers and poppies in the churches. Each had a bouquet of flowers, in which there are necessarily large ripe poppy heads. Such a bouquet is called “Makoviychik” or “Makoviyka” and there can also be marigolds, and asters, cloves, and cherry flowers, various grass (which are commonly called to “potions”) such as voloshky, cornflowers, mint, wormwood, yarrow. It is common to eat honey on this day. After honey has been blessed at the church, you can eat it. People cook porridge with honey, baking pies, cakes and buns with poppy seeds and honey, making honey kvas. Honey was considered to have mystical and healing powers, which were able to overcome many diseases. People said that on Honey Spas even the beggar will taste honey.

St. Savvaty and St. Zosima of the Solovetsky Islands became the Patron Saints, together with St. John the Baptist, of beekeepers in Ukraine. On the Feast of St Alexius the Man of God (March 30th), Ukrainian beekeepers would begin their chores by hanging small icons of Savvaty and Zosima in little shrines placed among their beehives, an event celebrated in one of the poems of the Ukrainian poet, Ivan Franko. Legend states that St. Zozimus walked to Egypt to collect bees and a queen. He carried them back to Ukraine in a ‘skep walking stick’, and this was the beginning of apiculture in the Ukraine. According to medieval chronicles, from this very beginning of its existence the Monastery had a bee yard, and that’s why people believe that these two saints have taught people how to keep bees.