Herve,
During the last Codex. dealing with honey, I, as a small part of the
Professional Honey Producers of France - SPMF, spent many hours
discussing the pros. and cons. of what should be included, changed,
insisted upon, left out, compromised etc.
E.U. regulations - the Honey Directive was being updated at approx. the
same time. Comparing the two shows a laxity in Codex. I do not wish to
go into details here, and make no comparison between Codex and other
National regulations - much may be sourced via.
www.apiservices.com. E.U. regulations may be super imposed by EU member
nations legislation, as long as it does not result in a weaker position
than that required by the E.U..
During the procedural wrangling it was very apparent that several
European honey producer countries had different objectives compared to
the major importing countries and packers; (see previous mails in
archives).
I remember much debate relating to Ultra filtration of honey,
geographical notation requirements and labelling, each causing
differences in opinion between producers and final sellers into the
retail market. The resulting legislation was not perfect - but was
considered better that what was in place before. The power in the hands
of the large importers/ packers was very apparent when compared to the
limited organisation of the producers.

Just before leaving France, I received a letter from one of the major
packers in France, indicating a major tightening in acceptable
levels of antibiotic residues in honey as produced by its suppliers. The
message effectively was a notification that treatment
undertaken in spring using OT. would most probably result in honey
containing too high levels of residue. The honey found in such a state
would be rejected.
The two articles indicated below might make interesting reading:

http://www.apimondia.org/apiacta/articles/2003/morlot.pdf

http://www.apicoltura.org/file_pdf/unifloral_honeys.pdf

The Charm 1 procedure has limitations in detecting residues in certain
situations and with particular types of honey - Sweet Chestnut for
example. This problem may be investigated by looking up more details on
the procedure.
I suggested to the author of the first article noted above, thatsuch
limitations might have influenced resulted shown for the Castanea. sp.
honeys tested, but received no response to my points. The procedure is
useful as it stands to point fingers at beekeepers - maybe unfairly!

Hope readers gain a little info. from this mail - and any comments would
be welcome, esp. from the E.U.

Regards,
Peter

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