Richard wrote:
Perhaps Chloramphenicol is used on the plants the bees forage. Erwinia
amylovora is a species of bacteria that causes fire blight in pome fruits
(pears, etc.). In the past Streptomycin was used.

We ruled out the above hypothesis as the single cause due to the
chloramphenicol contamination being so widespread but the above could have
been the source for some of the contamination.
I was told by people looking into the problem that the Chinese said "perhaps
the contamination was from growers using chloramphenicol on plants for
various reasons".

I had never heard of the contamination explanation put forth by Chuck before
but the explanation sounds reasonable and  would account for the Chinese
wanting  to cover up the real reason for the chloramphenicol use for reasons
brought up by Jim Fischer.

I have used Streptomycin in my orchard several times for severe fire blight.
I believe the last time was in 1993 when we had all the flooding and
constant rain. I only found a single source in the Kansas City area and the
Streptomycin was expensive to use.
Streptomycin is the only antibiotic I know of which will work on severe fire
blight available without getting the product from a doctor or veterinarian.

I suspect my veterinarian could supply chloramphenicol in bulk *but not
sure*. Many antibiotics are available from veternarians if you can convince
the vet the use is warrented. A paper trail always exists as  it should be.
If chloramphenicol was used  for fire blight the use would be before fruit
set so perhaps the use  might be  approved on fruit trees in areas which had
Streptomycin resistant fire blight. Don't know!

I believe if we were allowed to look at records in China that a paper trail
exists for every amount of chloramphenicol produced in China exactly like
the paper trail which exists for chloramphenicol produced in the U.S..

China honey brokers are many times not in direct contact with  the honey
producers so you can see the problem with getting to the heart of the  chlor
amphenicol contamination problem.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

BH/ETH

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