The finding of low levels of chloramphenicol in bulk Chinese honey by
the US Customs Service and the US Food and Drug Administration brings about
serious questions as to how did this stuff get into Chinese honey and
more important why?  Is there a serious internal problem in China with
American Foulbrood, ABF, and/or other honeybee diseases in China with
resistance to Terramycin and other antibiodics that the Chinese have
possibly already used to treat their hives?  If this condition of
resistance does exist and other stronger drugs have become so ineffective
that chloramphenicol is necessary to combat ABF and/or other diseases then
not only does China have a problem with drug resistance; does the entire
worldwide honey industry as well?  Honey with AFB spores shipped in bulk to
the Americas or Europe with resistance to a myriad of antibiodics, even
those now under trial with the FDA and other agencies, can easily be
exposed to the environment. Current methods of heating and filtering packed
honey can not filter out all the AFB spores; and then there could be the
release of raw Chinese honey from a damaged drum that may possibly be
picked up by local robbing bees from the grounds of a importer or packer.
Simply put an innocent child could feed Chinese honey to the bees on a
plate of pancakes and the result could be the introduction of a strain of
AFB that has resistance to almost everything! If this senario is valid we
need to prepare for and begin combating this problem at its source even at
the embarrasment of the Chinese. We already have evidence of Terramycin
resistant AFB, we do not need other resistant types.

Chuck Norton
Reidsville, NC USA