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I am Marica Gatt, a 30 year old wife, mother, and
beekeeper from the
Island of Malta.
From a young age, science subjects were always my
favorite. This led me to the Agriculture World, when I chose to follow a
Diploma course at the College of Agriculture in my country. I was so
attracted to the subjects offered in this course. Soon I got to know that in the second year, students had to
carry out practices in farms, laboratories, abattoirs, etc, and also that in the fourth year I had to specialize in one
 of the subjects and carry
out a thesis.
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Everything seemed so interesting. In
the second year a new subject was presented to the students. This was
Apiculture. To be honest, I was a little bit afraid of bees but lectures
on the bee life made me really interested in knowing more
about these social insects. Practice period arrived. All students
refused to do practice on bees, but I wanted to show the males that
the only female in the course is a heroine. Although afraid and
curious, I began my practice. This was the beginning of my career. I was so
involved in bees that I decided to take bees, particularly bee diseases as
my specializing subject. I carried out a thesis on parasitic bee mites,
where I analyzed bee samples from 72 beekeepers around Malta.
Following I was employed with the Department of
Agriculture, in the Extension Service Section. Although this job was
interesting, I was wishing to be the Officer in charge of the Apiculture
Section. My wish came true, because in 1997, the Minister of Agriculture
called me to give me this post. This was a great experience for me, coming
in contact with all beekeepers and also full time working on bees. I
continued this job for a year, and then my health constricted me to move to another job
opportunity.
Beekeeping for me is still very important, in
fact I am a part-time beekeeper, and wishing to be a private full time
beekeeper in the future.
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