ABSTRACT OF THE WEEK

The Veterinary Clinics of North America. Food animal practice
Volume 37 | Issue 3 (November 2021)

Registered Medicinal Products for Use in Honey Bees in the United States and Canada.

Vet Clin North Am Food Anim Pract. November 2021;37(3):451-465.

Tracy S Farone¹

¹ Grove City College, 100 Campus Drive, Grove City, PA 16127, USA. Electronic address: tsfarone@gcc.edu.

Abstract

A 2017 US Food and Drug Administration mandate requiring veterinary oversight for medically important antibiotics used in agricultural animals, including honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) created a "new" animal requiring veterinary involvement. Many resources are available describing medical formulations of antibiotics and other drugs used in the treatment of various honey bee maladies. The goal of this article is to summarize this information in an up-to-date, practical way for the clinician. At the time of this writing, only 3 antibiotics are approved for use in honey bees and require veterinary prescriptions or veterinary feed directives.

Keywords

Antibiotic resistance; Honey bee antibiotics; Veterinary feed directive (VFD); Veterinary honey bee medications;

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