On Sun, 7 Jan 2001, Peter Borst wrote:

> Yes. "Occam's razor" favors the simplest explanation: beekeepers have created
 resistant bacteria by dosing colonies with oxytetracyclene for 30 years.

I think it possible that we have been saved from resistance because we
have used the OTC in syrup solutions which are fairly ineffective.
They would leave a large proportion of non-resistant spores which
would outproduce the (presumably) less efficient organisms with the
superfluous resistance mechanism. When we got the patties which keep
the OTC effective for longer periods, the nonresistant organisms would
be wiped out leaving only the resistant ones to reproduce.

Best regards,

Donald Aitken
Edmonton Alberta Canada