Sascha Wil­son

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture has giv­en the all-clear to the pub­lic to re­turn to Palmiste Park in San Fer­nan­do.

This comes more than a month af­ter sev­er­al vis­i­tors, in­clud­ing chil­dren, were at­tacked by bees, some of whom were hos­pi­talised.

The at­tack oc­curred on East­er Mon­day (April 1) around 4.15 pm while sev­er­al ac­tiv­i­ties were hap­pen­ing at the park in­clud­ing the Rapid­fire Kidz Foun­da­tion pet­ting zoo and car show event and a birth­day lime.

At least eight peo­ple, in­clud­ing four chil­dren, sought med­ical treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. There were no fa­tal­i­ties. 

The fol­low­ing day, a crew from the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries’ Re­gion­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion South Di­vi­sion Bee Abate­ment Unit con­duct­ed an as­sess­ment and iden­ti­fied hives with bees in sev­en large trees.

The trees were cor­doned off with red cau­tion tape and the next day, the crew re­turned to the park to spray the hives. 

In a state­ment on Fri­day, the min­istry stat­ed that vis­i­tors must be mind­ful of these es­sen­tial in­sects and un­der­stand how to en­sure the safe­ty of both the bees and them­selves dur­ing park ac­tiv­i­ties. 

Of­fer­ing safe­ty tips, the min­istry ad­vised vis­i­tors to avoid dis­turb­ing bee­hives or swarms, main­tain a safe dis­tance, re­duce noise lev­els, wear light-coloured cloth­ing, and min­imise the use of fra­granced per­son­al care items.

How­ev­er, if stung, the min­istry sug­gest­ed that peo­ple stay calm, re­move the stinger, em­ploy a flat ob­ject (avoid us­ing tweez­ers), wash the area with soap and wa­ter and ap­ply a cold com­press or ice pack to al­le­vi­ate swelling and dis­com­fort.

The re­lease fur­ther stat­ed, “Bees play a vi­tal role in main­tain­ing the eco­log­i­cal bal­ance of Palmiste Park. As res­i­dents of this vi­brant ecosys­tem, it’s es­sen­tial to un­der­stand and re­spect their pres­ence while en­joy­ing all that the park has to of­fer. Your safe­ty and en­joy­ment are para­mount as we re­open Palmiste Park. We urge all vis­i­tors to fa­mil­iarise them­selves with these bee safe­ty guide­lines and join us in pre­serv­ing the park’s nat­ur­al splen­dour.”

For any ur­gent bee-re­lat­ed con­cerns or emer­gen­cies with­in Palmiste Park, mem­bers of the pub­lic were ad­vised to con­tact the Vic­to­ria Coun­ty Of­fice: 685-7204 / 371-2829, St Patrick East Coun­ty Of­fice at366-7721,  811 for the am­bu­lance and 999 for the po­lice.