作者： admin

For the first time in a decade and a half, commercial beekeepers across Portland, Jamaica have walked away from their hives empty-handed during April – the parish’s most productive month for honey collection. According to Bernard Walker, president of the Portland Bee Farmers Association, this unprecedented disruption traces directly to a shifting seasonal blossoming schedule of local flora across the northeastern parish.

Walker estimates that the missed first major honey flow of the year has cost local producers roughly 1,000 gallons of unsold honey, equal to a minimum revenue loss of $14 million Jamaican dollars. In interviews, he explained that long-standing regional blooming cycles have broken down in recent years: where mango trees once consistently produced full blooms across December, the crop now reaches peak blossoming as early as March. By the time April arrives, mango flowering has long tapered off, and while other local crops do blossom later in the season, their combined bloom period shifted entirely to March, leaving bees with no major nectar source as harvest season traditionally begins.

This disruption has also created an unusual supply gap across Jamaica. Following Hurricane Melissa’s damage to honey production in western Jamaica, local food manufacturers and the Jamaica Promotions Corporation have flooded Portland’s producers with requests for additional honey to make up for regional shortages. But Walker says that after checking in with all member farmers during the association’s monthly second-Thursday meeting, there is currently no harvestable honey available anywhere in the parish. Producers are now a full seven weeks behind their standard harvesting calendar.

Portland’s beekeepers typically collect honey four times annually between March and September. Having missed the critical March-April opening harvest, the association now anticipates holding the first collection of 2024 in June – a date that would normally mark the second harvest of the year. Even with this adjusted schedule, Walker warns that yields are expected to be far lower than average.

Compounding the risk is the timing: June marks the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, and with production already lagging far behind normal, even a weak tropical depression could spell total disaster for the parish’s producers. Walker noted that a single major storm could end the entire honey harvesting season for Portland, potentially resulting in the first year on record with zero commercial honey production from the parish. For full-time commercial beekeepers, who rely on honey sales as their primary source of household income, such an outcome would be financially devastating. “This is what we do for a living,” Walker emphasized.

In the wake of recent hurricanes Beryl and Melissa, the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) and the national Ministry of Agriculture stepped in to provide emergency supplementary feed for Portland’s bee populations, a move that helped stabilize colonies after a prolonged dry period. Moving forward, Walker says the association plans to stretch the remaining feed stock through 2026 to support colony health through future dry seasons. Adequate nutrition allows queen bees to lay more eggs during dry periods, cutting rates of colony collapse caused by starvation, he explained.

To address the root cause of shifting nectar supplies, the association is organizing community-wide tree planting events over the upcoming Labour Day weekend. The initiative aims to expand native foraging habitat for bees and ensure consistent, long-term food sources for hives across the parish. Walker is urging all local residents and community groups to participate, noting that healthy bee populations do more than produce honey: they are foundational to global and local food security. As the world’s primary pollinators, bees are responsible for fertilizing roughly one-third of all food consumed by humans.

“To make sure our bees have enough feed, the general public has to play a major role,” Walker said. “Even in urban neighborhoods and housing developments, if every household plants one or two fruit trees like ackee or mango, that small change adds up to make a huge difference for local bees.”

The association has also adopted a new adaptive practice to boost colony nutrition: mixing moringa powder, a nutrient-dense plant-based supplement, into sugar syrup for bee feed. Early results have been promising, Walker says, with bees readily accepting the supplement. Moringa’s high nutritional content, wide availability, and ease of cultivation across Jamaica make it an ideal local solution that cuts reliance on imported feed, while also improving food safety safeguards for the industry.

As producers wait for June’s adjusted harvest, the entire community of Portland beekeepers is holding out for a quiet, storm-free Atlantic hurricane season to avoid a total annual loss.

For most parents, a child’s first birthday marks a joyous milestone of growth and new beginnings. For Peta-Gaye Forbes Robinson, a Jamaican mother based in Kingston, that celebration was quickly followed by an unsettling turn that would reshape the course of her entire family’s life. Just two months after her son Shadrach turned one, the toddler who had already mastered reciting the full alphabet and counting to 20 suddenly lost nearly all his verbal skills, reduced only to forcing out the single letter “E”.

Alarmed by the obvious developmental regression and repeated concerns from loved ones that Shadrach was not hitting key growth markers, Robinson sought medical evaluation immediately. After months of waiting for a assessment with a behavioural specialist, there was no clear path forward. It was not until Shadrach turned three that a formal neurological diagnosis delivered a devastating blow: the young boy was non-verbal autistic, medical professionals told the couple, and he would never speak, requiring 24/7 lifelong care.

Robinson, however, refused to accept this grim prognosis. With a professional background in early childhood education, she began diving deep into autism research to better understand her son’s condition and explore every possible intervention. At the time, she held a demanding corporate role that kept her away from home for long hours. Though she repeatedly felt a spiritual pull to leave her job to focus full-time on Shadrach, fear of the financial strain on her family kept her from making the leap, and she left her son’s progress in the hands of public state institutions. For years, little improvement came.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic amplified that persistent calling to resign, turning a quiet nudge into an unavoidable conviction. A follow-up assessment confirmed what Robinson had feared: Shadrach had made almost no progress in years, and the couple’s hope was wearing thin. That was when Robinson made the irreversible decision: she walked away from her corporate career, pulled Shadrach from traditional school, and launched a structured homeschooling programme with support from local homeschooling collective Jamaica Life Learners.

The early months of homeschooling were fraught with struggle and frustration. Robinson came close to abandoning her efforts entirely, and one Friday, overwhelmed, she decided to set aside all formal lessons. It was in that moment of pause that she followed spiritual guidance to test a new phonics-based speech technique, grouping letters by vowels and consonants to build foundational speech skills. At first, Shadrach showed no response. Robinson, frustrated, sent him off to play. Minutes later, she heard a clear, quiet voice repeating the vowels: A, E, I, O, U. Shadrach was five years old, and that small moment was the turning point the family had waited years for.

The most cherished milestone came soon after, when Robinson cried alone in Shadrach’s room, wondering if she would ever hear her son say “I love you”. As she turned away weeping, she felt Shadrach approach, and a jumbled, quiet phrase reached her ears: “I love you.” Over and over, he repeated the words, growing louder and clearer each time. To this day, Shadrach, now 10, repeats the phrase to his mother constantly – a gift she never takes for granted.

Following that breakthrough, Robinson continued to adapt her approach, drawing on targeted resources and integrating consistent spiritual intercession into her work with Shadrach. Over five years of steady effort, the transformation extended far beyond speech. Once, the boy’s severe sensory issues meant five adults had to restrain him just to clean his teeth; he refused all but a tiny handful of foods due to texture aversions, and was triggered by common sounds and numbers. Today, Shadrach eats a full range of foods, manages his sensory challenges independently, and attends a mainstream public school. A recent re-evaluation only diagnosed a mild expressive receptive language gap, and he is fully capable of caring for himself. An aspiring engineer with a passion for aviation, he regularly repairs old gadgets and phones around the house, and can identify aircraft make and model mid-flight just by looking up at the sky.

Buoyed by her son’s unimaginable progress, Robinson founded Gifted Minds in 2021, a home-based, individualised intervention programme that supports other children on the autism spectrum across Jamaica. What began as a personal journey to save her own son has become a mission to bring hope to other families who have been given devastating diagnoses.

In encouraging other parents facing similar struggles, Robinson urges people not to get stuck in grief or the question of “why me.” Instead, she advises shifting focus to asking “how” – how to learn, how to adapt, how to advocate for your child. It is that shift, she says, that opened the door to every breakthrough her family has experienced, turning a prognosis of lifelong dependence into a story of radical transformation and purpose.

For months, 10-year-old Nicholi Smith held tightly to one simple, heartfelt birthday wish: to stand at his mother Natalie Dobson’s graveside, speak to her just as he did when she was alive, and mark his 10th year in her presence. What should have been a tender, healing moment at Jamaica’s Dovecot Memorial Park and Crematory last Tuesday instead dissolved into heartbreak, leaving the boy sobbing and unable to fulfill the only wish he asked for. Now, the family’s devastating experience has sparked widespread public outcry over the disrespectful treatment of deceased loved ones at the St Catherine-based burial ground.

Nicholi’s wish was born from profound grief. Dobson, a beloved mother of five who had shared 22 years with Rupert Smith, Nicholi’s father, died in December 2025 at age not disclosed, from a fungal infection linked to her asthma inhaler. Just days after Dobson’s January 2026 funeral, Nicholi told his family the only thing he wanted for his 10th birthday was a trip to his mother’s grave. He turned down toys, new clothes, and even a birthday party—all he wanted was to be at her final resting place.

“He’s a Taurus, so he was not going to forget just like that. He told me, he told his grandmother and his aunt that’s what he wants — to go visit his mom for his birthday. He never said he wanted anything else,” Rupert Smith shared in an interview with the Jamaica Observer. “It mash me up wicked. After I calmed him down, I said, ‘See your mother wreath here, talk to her.’ He hissed his teeth and said he doesn’t want to talk to her that way, he wants to know for sure he is right where her grave is so that he can say, ‘Yes, she is right here.’ He said speaking to the wreath is not her, it’s just a photo.”

When the pair arrived at the cemetery, they made a devastating discovery: all the plot markers marking individual grave sites had been uprooted by construction workers digging new graves, and left piled haphazardly on the ground. A wreath holding Dobson’s portrait, placed at her grave earlier by the family, lay half-buried in dirt nearby, but there was no way to confirm the exact spot where she was buried. Rupert Smith captured the moment on camera, and the viral video shows him brushing dirt off the wilted wreath while expressing his frustration, before panning to a confused, heartbroken Nicholi, who breaks down into tears when he realizes his wish will not come true.

After leaving the cemetery, Nicholi sat silent for the entire ride home, and burst into inconsolable tears as soon as the pair walked through their front door. Speaking to the Sunday Observer, the 10-year-old said he just wanted to tell his mother how much he missed her.

“I miss her smile, her kindness, and her love,” Nicholi said. “She always took care of me when I was sick and was always there for me. They need to put back the things in the ground so that we can find her and take care of her. I hope to visit my mother every year for my birthday.”

Rupert Smith, who described Dobson as a woman of extraordinary kindness who welcomed and raised his three children from previous relationships as her own, said the cemetery’s neglectful treatment of her grave is a fundamental violation of the basic respect owed to the deceased. He noted that families pay the cemetery to care for their loved ones’ final resting places, and that returning visitors deserve to be able to find the sites without unnecessary pain.

“She was the best mom ever. She always puts her kids first, and she even takes care of my kids,” Smith said. “In Jamaica a lot of women nah go accept a man that have kids outside the relationship and make them come live with them and take care of them as their own, but she was different from everybody else, trust me. She deserved to be laid to rest with respect. Them nuh care. She is dead, yes, but at least she should die with some respect, because people pay unnu to do that. They can’t just say them done dead and gone so unnu don’t care what happen after the people dem gone. That’s not right.”

Since the video was posted to social media, it has sparked widespread discussion of poor cemetery maintenance across Jamaica, with dozens of viewers sharing their own stories of being unable to locate loved ones’ graves due to lost or discarded markers. Smith said the outpouring of shared experience confirms the issue is systemic, and that cemetery leadership needs to implement new protocols to ensure grounds crew prioritize the needs of returning visitors.

“It’s a business for them, but we are the customers, and so they must know that customers come first,” Smith stressed. “You can’t treat customers that way. People nah go want to do business with you if they know that they have their loved ones and they can’t carry them to you knowing that you are going to do what you are supposed to do so that when they come back they can say, ‘This is where such and such buried.’ The supervisors need to speak with the grounds people and make them know that it’s not all the time people a guh bury their loved ones and don’t come back. You a guh have people who a guh come back and look for their loved ones, so they have to bear that in mind. You have people who come back and look for their loved ones, and it a guh painful to know that they can’t find them… It’s not supposed to happen that way.”

Multiple attempts to get comment from Dovecot Memorial Park management have so far gone unanswered, with a representative saying the authorized spokesperson was unavailable to provide a statement as of press time.