Maltese Honey Bee- In-Nahla Maltija

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The Maltese honeybee - Apis mellifera ruttneri

Apis mellifera ruttneri is the endemic honey bee of the Maltese islands. This species evolved when the Maltese islands where isolated from mainland Europe, after the Mediterranean sea closed the passage to Sicily. For many years it was the sole honeybee species in the Maltese islands till importation of queens happened in recent years when many queens and packaged bees where imported after 1992. This happened after the devastation left by the Varroa mite that was found in the islands that year. It is estimated that the about 4000 colonies where devastated by the varroa mite at that time. The sub species relates closely to the North African bee (A. m. intermissa) and although slightly lower, with the Sicilian bee (A. m. sicula). It's identification was done in 1997 by WS Sheppard, Marc Arias, A Grech and MD Meixner. It is named after Professor Friedeich Ruttner (1914 - 1998) to acknowledge his research in beekeeping. When tests where done at that time it was found that altough after all the importation that happened before the Maltese sub-spiecies was still identifiable and also dominant.

Charachteristics of the Maltese Honey Bee

The Maltese honey bee is small in size and of a dark colour. When compared to the North African bee and the Sicilian bee it has shorter legs and wings. The wings are also much narrower. From all the bee races it has the widest abdomen. It has long hair on it's abdomen. This bee is very adapted to the Maltese islands climate and enviornment. The queen will keep constant laying of eggs to the climate variations. It is noted that before summer and winter the queen drops in the number of eggs laid and stores extra honey in the brood chamber instead, than again starts laying abundantly exactly before spring time and autumn. Altough it has a tendancy of being very defensive and sometimes aggresive it can be bred to a more docile honey bee. It is also a very productive bee as it is obsereved working in strong windy days and during hot weather. During summer time when tempretures can get over 40 °C the bee tends to work early in the morning and in the afternoon till sunset while taking a short break during mid day. It always stores enough honey for winter and sometimes there will be no need to supplement the colonies with bee candy or sugar syrup in winter. This type of bee has a tendancy to swarm and when continuasly disturbed it will abscond the hive. It also makes alot of queen cells and a colony sometimes have more than one swarm. The Maltese bee is sometimes aggressive during bad weather and defends the hive very well against other pests. Sometimes wasp nests are seen near the hives in a few metres distance away without offering any problems to the bees. From my observations it cleans the hive very well and removes any foreign material promptly.

oney is a sweet food made by some species insects using nectar from flowers. The honey produces by honey bees is the most common, as this insect makes a good surplus of honey which is harvested by the beekeeper to be consumed later as food. The taste of honey comes from the types of flowers the bees visit during their forage time. This also gives different properties for honey.

The bees collect nectar form flowers and store it in their honeycomb cells. After this the bees add enzymes to the nectar and dry it from water. When honey is ready , they cap each cell with a piece of wax (like a kind of lid). The beekeeper encourages the overproduction of honey so it can be harvested without endangering the bee colony. When he takes the frames containing honey the beekeeper removes the wax cappings by an uncapping fork ofr an uncapping knife. After all caps are removed he puts the frames in the honey extractor and honey is taken out of the frames. The honey that gathers at the bottom of the extractor is than filtered and after left to settle in the settling tank is than bottled.

In religion Christians and Jews compare something beutiful and abundant with honey, St. John the Baptist lived in the desert on a diet of wild honey that he took from feral bee colonies and locusts. The Jewish symbol for the new year (Rosh Hashanah) is honey and apples, while the Muslims in the koran have a Surah named 'an-Nahl', meaning "of the bee" where the writer says that God created the bee to make honey which mankind can use to heal body ailments. It also have symbolisims in Hinduisim where it is one of the five elisirs and Buddhism as Buddha was offered honey by a monkey during his retreat. Even in ancient religions, the Egyptians and Incas offered honey to their gods.

Maltese types of Honey

The first type of honey we harvest here is the spring multiflora honey. This type of honey is gathered from many types of flowers that arepresent in spring time. It contains different kinds of pollen and nectar. In areas where clover is still grown the honey bees work alot on it's flower. Also when orange trees are present the bees work on it's blossoms. This type of honey is collected during May if the beekeeper is going to harvest wild thyme honey. Some people find it good against allergy and hay fever, when they take it regularly as this type contains different kinds of pollen and the body will get used to them slowly and don't react to them, resulting in less allergies. This type of honey has the tendency to solidify in few months (sometimes even less).

Honey bee collecting nectar from Wild Thyme flowers

The second harvest is of the wild thyme honey. At the end of May the Wild Thyme (Thymus Capitatus) shrub opens it's flowers. This type of plant grows on the garrigue in the north of Malta and on the island of Commino. It has little purple flowers with a very strong aromatic scent. The nectar collected from them by the bees make a very delicious honey. This season starts exactly in the last week of May and ends between the last of June and the first week of July.

After this season in the last weeks of August the bees start to work on the Eucalyptus flowers. This results in the build up the colony after it is slowed down by the summer temperatures. If no heavy rains occur in September the bees continue to gather from the Eucalyptus flowers during the month. These flowers are very sensitive to rain and humidity as they are like a fluffy ball. This type of honey is sometimes rare or very abundant as it depends on many factors, like temperatures, weather and strength of the hive. After the flowers of this tree abate in October the carob trees start to flower. The hives which now are strong enough and if the weather permits the bees to forage, another type of honey is taken. This autumn multifloral honey consists mainly from nectar collected from eucalyptus trees, carob and the flowers that one finds in the beginning of autumn. This honey tastes mainly of carob, and is used especially for sore throats, and by people who smoke.

It is important to note here that these types of honey after some time they solidify. The honey is still siutable to be used. It can be eaten solid or put the jar is put in warm water and the honey liquifies again.

Roman Beehives In Malta

Bread ovens, BBQ area, rock-cut tombs? No, Roman beehives in Malta

Almost every guide book on the Malta makes reference to the Islands’ name as deriving from the Greek word for honey – meli – or land of honey, melitos, or even their later Roman name ‘Melita’, also meaning honey. It’s just as likely the name came from the Phoenician Semitic verb form malata, meaning ‘one takes refuge.’ All these etmyological threads are possible, but the idea of the Maltese Islands as isles of honey is a connection that we love. Certainly, guide book prose always says Malta is honey coloured, from its warm, yellow limestone and sun. The Maltese word for honey by the way is Ghasel.

But it took a walk in fantastically warm weather, high up on the ridge near St Agatha’s Tower (Red Fort) beyond Mellieha, to drive home the millennia-old link between Malta and honey. The garrigue landscape up there is covered in wild thyme; the hardy weathered variety that survives downpours, gales and drought. These bushes rarely get trodden under foot so grow into bushy mounds. Rub them and savour a heady scent that is to die for, and many a lamb has.

Roman Beehives
Now, bees loves thyme when it flowers deep purple-blue in early summer (end May to early July). So it stands to reason that where there’s an abundance of thyme, beekeepers follow. I’d heard about some Roman beehives near Mellieha, but wasn’t at all sure where they were or what on earth they’d look like. They turned out to be a stone’s throw from the road that runs the length of the ridge, but they are easy to miss.

Thanks to a helpful walking guide of the area I’d picked up for €2.50 from Din l-Art Helwa (Malta’s National Trust) which runs the tower, I did an hour-long, circular route passing by the beehives. They lie nestled in a sheltered spot at the mouth of a cave just below the ridge top. If you didn’t know they were an early form of hive, you’d mistake them for bread ovens or perhaps a dovecote of some sort. Sadly, it did look like some people had used the spot as a kind of BBQ area. But in essence, this cave apiary is how it would have looked in Roman times, when Malta’s golden nectar was highly prized. It’s likely that clay pipes with one end closed, but for some small holes, were placed in the alcoves. The door cut in the side allows access to the back of the hollows for comb collecting. Clay pipes hives were in use until relatively recent times in Malta.

Malta’s honey zones
Mellieha is renown even today as a main honey producing zone, and early in the walk, you pass around 40 modern hives. Other zones include most of Gozo, the isle of Comino, and Fawwara, just below Dingli Cliffs in the West. Today, there are only around five, full-time beekeepers on the Islands who manage an income from this ancient livelihood.

Beekeeping here today
But, things are changing, and several, like Nicholas Zammit in Fawwara, are very enterprising, bottling around 500 kilo a year, in nice packaging, and with new lines, such as honey and pistacchios. Honey hand creams and beeswax products like ornamental candles are now regular sidelines too. Nicholas travels widely to beekeeping industry seminars and fairs, in the UK and Italy, for information on how to broaden his scope here. He dreams of an eco-tourism centre near his small-holding to introduce people to Malta’s heritage in honey, as well as a small museum with ancient tools and details of those Roman hives.

Honey types
There are around 20 kinds of honey in Malta attributed to various plants and trees including clover, eucalyptus, orange blossom, carob and thyme of course. If you buy fresh extracted honey and direct from a beekeeper, you’ll know which flowers dominate its taste. Spring is for clover and wayside flower honey; end May to early July is thyme season; and early autumn is for carob honey with its dark colour and distinct aroma.

Where to buy
Some places for starters:
Airport deli shops (but try to buy direct from keepers)
Jubilee Foods
Nicholas Zammit, Fawwara, tel: 21 465750 / 9946 7712
Any local grocer, but it might not be the best
Road side stalls – watch out for honey for sale signs!

Useful Links

For a short background on beekeeping in Malta and those clay pipes, see beesfordevelopment.org