Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1118959
21 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 MAY 2019 Mikiel Galea Sounding the alarm on bees BEESAVERSMALTA started out in 2015 by a group of students highly mo- tivated on the conservation of honey bees. Swarms of bees entrapped in urban dwellings or public places are voluntarily removed, quarantined and released into the wild to repopulate Malta's dwindling bee populations. At that time, the usual method of action was to eradicate the colony. Since the formal launch ofBeeSav- ersMalta in March 2018, a total of 115 requests have been received from the general public. These were responded to promptly. Although the majority of cases were related to wasps, the other situa- tions that were handled involved bees and were all successful. Thus a very good number of bee swarms were once again rescued, treated and rehomed – business as usual… In four years there has been a steady rise in bee swarm catchers, rather than pest controllers, which is a welcome change. It is far more likely today that a colony is rescued rather than eliminated. However, our concern lies in the treatment and quarantine of captured swarms. This requires care and expertise – serious reservations lie on the subse- quent care of these captured swarms by amateur bee catchers. Through rampant importation and trade, new diseases are springing up and it is counter intuitive to 'rescue' a swarm and place it near other healthy colonies, without adequate treat- ment. A tongue in cheek attitude is adopted by certain government departments such asGhammieri, which are handling easy cases of colony removal and del- egating tough cases to us (ex: colony removal from within building struc- tures). At this point we honestly thought the financial resources of the country are booming and as such, the public services are well equipped to handle such expen- sive interventions. The gravest concern, however, is that upon inspection of the hives, we have noticed an extensive amount of cells which are vacant of pollen and nectar, and thus had to be fed to maintain them. Bear in mind, rescued hives are never used for honey production. Let that sink in... established bee colo- nies without human intervention have to be artificially fed as they are starving! There is a serious lack of bee foraging sources in Malta, this should raise alarm bells to the greatest extent and will have severe ramifications in the near future. Our request for government land to be populated with bee-pollinated trees and self-seeding French clover, a pittance of an expense – have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. Bernardette Galea BeeSaversMalta Carmelite car-park YOUR article'Carmelite convent garden earmarked for 115-space parking pro- ject', gives readers theimpression that the Carmelite Community had given their consent to Mr John Cilia to apply for a development permit to construct 115 garage spaces. Indeed, the photo- graph published in the paper carried the caption: "The developer cited the consent of the site's owners in his ap- plication." This isabsolutely erroneousand mis- leading because the Carmelite Fathers have not given their consent to the ap- plication for the project. It would have been proper and journalistically correct if the author sought the opinion of the Carmelite Fathers before publishing the article. As mentioned in the article the origi- nal plan presented by Mr John Cilia has been refused. The developer requested the owners' consent to approve the project and allow him to apply to the Planning Authority for a new permit to develop the garden for residential parking instead. Follow- ing the judgment, the Carmelite Fathers replied to Mr Cilia's request informing him that no consent could be given as the judgment rejecting his original plan- ning application had automatically can- celled any written agreement that might have existed between the parties. As Mr Cilia proceeded to file a new application, the Carmelite Fathers have served a judicial protest on both Mr Cilia and the Planning Authority formally in- forming them thatno consent was given to the new application. Mr Cilia has no legal title whatsoever to proceed with a new application. The Carmelite Fathers reserve all rights to claim any damagessufferedin case the developer and the Planning Au- thority remain in default. The matter has been the subject of judicial proceedings which are still ongoing and the Carmel- ite Fathers assure your readers that they are doing everything possible to stop the development. Dr MarioCaruana Letters & Clarifications