As the smaller, quieter sister island to Malta, Gozo is generally greener and a lot more laid back than its bigger neighbour. It’s also possible to walk, cycle, or for very little cost, tour the whole island by bus (Arriva Malta no less).Gozo is easily reached by a regular, short and cheap ferry trip from Malta.

There is a long history of keeping bees on both islands, and also on the adjacent tiny thyme-covered isle of Comino. Up until the 1950’s bees were usually kept in clay pots, often shaded from the strong sun under Carob trees.(see Michael Buhagiar’s excellent website for photos and more information) www.maltesebeekeeper.com

Ahead of a recent visit, we also contacted EcoGozo www.ecogozo.com to ask if they knew of any English-speaking beekeepers on the island willing to tell us more about Maltese bees (Apis Mellifera Ruttneri), try some local honey and look at hives.

Thanks to EcoGozo we met up with Saviour, who generously spent some of his time explaining about bee-keeping on the island. It was interesting to see the large number of hives he manages and also to learn about the many bee-friendly wild plants on Gozo such as thyme, lavender, thistles, fennel and wild daffodils to Eucalyptus, Carob trees etc.

He learnt from his relatives (many villages on the island still have older “resident” beekeepers). Saviour has his hives located across Gozo and like many UK beekeepers, he builds his own supers and hive frames. He also imports various beekeeping bits from Thornes of Wragby in Lincolnshire. There is strong demand for honey and bee- products on Malta, born out by a beekeeping job advert we noticed in the Times of Malta for that week. It was also nice to look at his well-tended vegetable plot (harvesting tomatoes and beans outdoors in late November!).

EcoGozo are currently trying to raise awareness around the vital role bees play on the island through school-based projects etc. We also learnt about recycling schemes, grey water-harvesting and a planned solar farm for the island later in 2013.

We are returning to the island next year to meet Saviour again and hopefully visit the Bahrija Oasis project in the north of Malta, which featured in a recent edition of Permaculture Magazine (see http://bahrijaoasis.blogspot.co.uk and on YouTube.

The EcoGozo vision (from their website) “Gozo will become an eco-island by 2020, supported by a keen and committed sustainable community. We want to see quality of life in Gozo improving further through education, economic development and social progress. Gozo will strive to reduce its carbon and water footprints. We want to protect the Gozitan lifestyle, the island’s environment, resources, culture and identity, and see that all these play a significant part in attracting more visitors and investors to the island”.

“The eco-island foresees a sustainable, and therefore, a secure future for the island of Gozo. It is a vision rooted in the island’s potential and the capabilities of its people. EcoGozo is a vision for an island to become even more beautiful, inspiring, welcoming, thriving, inclusive and successful. A healthy and successful place to live in, in equilibrium with the environment. This is essentially what eco-island will strive to achieve”.

Simon & Mary Wallace