Practical screening procedure for sulfathiazole in honey.

A simple, inexpensive procedure is described for rapidly screening small samples of honey for sulfathiazole (ST), a drug formerly used but not approved in the United States for the prophylactic treatment of American foulbrood disease of bees. The method uses 2 plastic tubes arranged in tandem. The upper tube contains a bed of alumina, which removes some interfering pigments. The lower tube contains a very small bed of anion exchange resin in the HSO4- form, which traps the ST. The drug is eventually eluted and detected using the Bratton-Marshall diazotization-coupling reagents. Honey containing 0.1 ppm ST can be readily detected. An optional dye concentration step permits the detection of as little as 25 ppb ST.