Hop Guard

[Ian]

Has anyone have any experience with using this varroa mite treatment?
Im thinking of using it as I make up my nucs.
Does anyone know if this treatment has been approved for use in Canada?
Thx

[Chip Euliss]

Tried it on doubles in North Dakota as part of an experiment. Mite loads were not lowered. Treated in summer and the doubles were fairly strong.

[Ian]

What was your experience in using this product? Ease of use, packaging, handling of the product, effect on the bees,?

[Keith Jarrett]

Some keepers call it hope guard.

[Ian]

A treatment like this, where it has a treatment period of only a few days would only work in a broodless situation. I can manage into that treatment situation while making up Nucs.
The question I have is, does it actually kill mites?

[swarm_trapper]

I used it on 200 splits this summer right at the brood break that i get with a cell and it knocked them in the head. On my hives with brood not that great of kill. Any hives i make with cells i will use it again

[wildbranch2007]

Tried it on doubles in North Dakota as part of an experiment. Mite loads were not lowered. Treated in summer and the doubles were fairly strong.

did you treat once or three times, threads on beesource have said that you have to treat three times (once a week?) to kill the mites as it doesn't kill the mites in the capped cells.

[swarm_trapper]

Ian i did do alcohol washes before and after, The before was around 15-20 in a roll the after was 0-1 mites (this is per 300 bees) These bees were actually so clean that i didn't treat them before my pepper crop every thing else needed treatment. The way i treated them was i hit them at i think day 19 from when i put the cell in that way there was hardly any brood, then i think i hit them one more time 7 days later when doing checkbacks. I don't know if the second time was necessary or not. But it didnt hurt my queen takes at all! And in my splits i just used on strip per hive so it wasnt that pricy, doing it twice cost 1.20 a hive.

Wild branch i hit some of my older bees with hop guard 3 times and it only took the levels down from a 20 to a 7 so it still wasn't clean enough in my book. Had to hit them with a thymol clean up.

[jim lyon]

Ian i did do alcohol washes before and after, The before was around 15-20 in a roll the after was 0-1 mites (this is per 300 bees) These bees were actually so clean that i didn't treat them before my pepper crop every thing else needed treatment. The way i treated them was i hit them at i think day 19 from when i put the cell in that way there was hardly any brood, then i think i hit them one more time 7 days later when doing checkbacks. I don't know if the second time was necessary or not. But it didnt hurt my queen takes at all! And in my splits i just used on strip per hive so it wasnt that pricy, doing it twice cost 1.20 a hive.

Wild branch i hit some of my older bees with hop guard 3 times and it only took the levels down from a 20 to a 7 so it still wasn't clean enough in my book. Had to hit them with a thymol clean up.

That sounds like a really effective program Nick. I have used oxalic at the 20 day mark with good success though I was concerned that a nuc with a newly mated queen just getting started may be slowed down as there is research out there showing that oxalic use can slow brood production a bit. This well may be an excellant way to use Hopguard.

[Ian]

Yes I have used Oxalic acid also and I am always very worried about my queen health when using Oxalic or any other type of acid treatment. Hop Guard may be an excellent fit for this type of management option.
Thank you swarm_trapper with your mite wash counts. 5-6% mite load starting, 0%-.3% mite load after treatment is an excellent knock down. In fact I wouldnt even call that a knock down, Id call that a complete treatment.
Im going to look into this treatment further.

[Chip Euliss]

Mike. Treated 3X. There was brood as it was in the peak of summer flow. From this discussion, maybe I should have used it on the nucs I make up with cells in the spring.

[Ian]

Like any treatment which only lasts for a few days, for the treatment to be effective, the hive has to be broodless.

[Ian]

a real neat trick would be to be able to insert this treatment into my hives while they sit inside the wintering shed right now.