Peter Dillon asked, about the "tainted Chinese honey":

> Is it considered likely that the previously antibiotic tainted crop will
> be diluted with subsequent crops and then put onto the world market?

"Likely" is a bit of an understatement.

There are two scenarios that I can map out for you:


SCENARIO 1 - "Feed The Hungry US Bees"

  Under the proposed rules offered by USDA APHIS for imports of bees, they
  also address bee-related products like wax, and "honey for bee feed":

  http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-20941-filed
  http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-20941-filed.pdf

     (I have mentioned this so often recently that some may be sick
     of the subject, but please forgive me if I point out that requests
     for extension of the comment period for "Docket 98-109-1" can
     be e-mailed to "[log in to unmask]" until Nov 18th, 2002,
     as can expressions of concern about the point explained here.)

  In "Section 322.33", these proposed rules address the importation of "Honey For Bee Feed",
  and require nothing more than certification by the shipper/exporter that the honey was:

        "Heated to 212 F (100 C) for 30 minutes"

  Yeah, suuuure.... that's the ticket!
   "Bee feed"...
   Several hundred metric tons of "bee feed"...
   Uh huh.



SCENARIO 2 -  "The Manchurian Candidate"

  Why would anyone pay the return shipping charges to the other side of the
  planet if they intended to "do the right thing", and scrap the consignment?

  I assure you such shipping charges would not be justified by recovery of
  their 55-gallon drums.  (Jokes about Chinese honey drums can provide
  an entire evening's entertainment for any group of North American
  beekeepers, extending well after "last call" at the bar.)

> Would such a practice be possible to detect as having happened?
> If so, is there evidence of a will to try and pre-empt such an occurrence?

  Given that the antibiotic chemical at issue is one for which there is no
  "allowable tolerance" anywhere, one can smile and say four letters - "HPLC"
  (a High Performance Liquid Chromatograph, one of my favorite toys).
  Here is perhaps the only case where "parts per billion" and "parts per
  trillion" have an actual valid application in regard to honey, and stand
  little chance of being abused or misinterpreted, given that authorities
  now know exactly what "peak" to look for in the analysis "graph".

  Every country's domestic honey producers have a few months to make
  sure that port-of-entry inspectors find a nearby lab with such gear before
  more suspicious drums arrive.  A test for a single specific contaminant can
  be completed in less time than required to develop a roll of film, and certainly
  in less time that is required for a shipment to "clear customs".

  But even if this is done universally and applied to all shipments in both
  scenarios, the most likely result would then be the sudden appearance
  of baklava as a new dessert sensation in China.

  So someone, somewhere >>WILL<< end up eating the tainted stuff, one
  way or another, and the only questions in either scenario are "who?",
  "at what price?", and "at what cost?".


                jim