Honey production has long been part of Malta’s history, renowned by Phoenicians and Romans. In collaboration with Jorge Spiteri, the Argotti Botanic Gardens now houses a number of colonies of the endemic Maltese bee ‘Apis mellifera. ruttneri’
The advantage of raising honey bees in a botanic garden within the city of gardens – Floriana- is that we host a multitude of diverse collections of flora, both indigenous and exotic. This provides the pollinating bees with a variety of sources from which to create this delicious multiflora honey we are sharing with the public.
Argan oil is the liquid gold of plant products. Traditionally this oil is produced by Moroccan women, who go through the time-consuming process of extracting the oil by hand from the kernels of their endemic tree Argania spinosa.
The high value and rarity of this oil is the reason why in 1998 UNESCO designated the southwestern region of Morocco as a ‘Biosphere Reserve’, so as to preserve the argan tree.
As we at the botanic garden are fortunate enough to have this tree in our collection, we have managed to produce this valued oil.