Lithuania's "tree beekeeping" series draws on a genuinely ancient Baltic practice — hollow-log hives carved directly into living trees, known as drevės, which were once so economically significant that medieval Lithuanian law prescribed the death penalty for stealing bees or destroying a hive tree. The tradition survived in the forests of eastern Lithuania and neighboring Belarus long after it had vanished across most of Europe.
The 1½ euro denomination itself is a Lithuanian invention, used for collector issues since 2017 and accepted nowhere as legal tender outside a narrow ceremonial definition.
Lithuania's "tree beekeeping" series draws on a genuinely ancient Baltic practice — hollow-log hives carved directly into living trees, known as drevės, which were once so economically significant that medieval Lithuanian law prescribed the death penalty for stealing bees or destroying a hive tree. The tradition survived in the forests of eastern Lithuania and neighboring Belarus long after it had vanished across most of Europe.
The 1½ euro denomination itself is a Lithuanian invention, used for collector issues since 2017 and accepted nowhere as legal tender outside a narrow ceremonial definition.