Antibiotics multiplex dipstick for honey: field evaluation planned. Register as potential participant.

Antibiotics in honey

Antibiotics are used by some beekeepers to treat or prevent bacterial infestation of bee hives, e.g. sulfonamides, nitrofurans, chloramphenicol and tylosin. Residues of these chemicals enter the honey. Honeys with such residues are banned from import in many countries, e.g. the European Union. Contaminated honey from an individual beekeeper can spoil entire batches downstream in the distribution chain with severe financial implications.

Field test/dipstick for antibiotics

A simple and cheap test has been developed within the EU project CONffIDENCE that allows collectors, intermediaires and staff at cooperatives to test individual lots of honey for antibiotics before purchase. The multiplex dipstick detects sulfonamides, tylosin, fluoroquinolones and chloramphenicol. The test can be carried out under field conditions. The entire procedure does not take more than 45 min/8 samples from sampling to result.

Your involvement

We intend to test the dipstick under real field conditions to prove its applicability and robustness. Therefore, we look for parties that are interested to participate in a field survey using the new dipsticks. The survey will be focussed on the first links of the honey supply chain, i.e. close to the producer/beekeeper. This could be cooperatives, collectors, intermediaires, but also companies that collect honey directly from producers and want to test it at the point of handover.

Participation is free of charge. The dipstick kits will be supplied as well as detailed instructions. The kits should be used to analyse a number of samples from your routine flow (as well as some control samples supplied with the kits). All results will be treated as confidential.

Contact

You are welcome to express your interest in participating in the field study by filling in your contact information in the following form. Upon registration you will receive updates on the status of the survey as well as invitations once the final design and dates of the study have been fixed. Registration is non-binding.

Flyer to download