# Hop Guard



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

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


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## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

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.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

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


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

Some keepers call it hope guard.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

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?


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

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


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

thats exactly my plan too swarm_trapper!
It has been suggested that this treatment is very easy on the bees and queens, it is very hard on mites, but its only a few day treatment. I plan on making a bunch of nucs which will be queened by cells. During that broodless break, my plan is to treat them with Hop Guard. If the treatment kills the mites, I should have mite free nucs as the queen starts laying. 

did you do any pre and post mite counts on your splits


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2y4rndPhlo&feature=share


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

swarm_trapper said:


> 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


Are you putting it in when you put the cells in or a few weeks later at checkback?


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

Chip Euliss said:


> 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.


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

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.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

swarm_trapper said:


> 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.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

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.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

What was your experience in using this product in regards to ease of use, packaging and handling of the product


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## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

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.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

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


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

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.


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

Hop guard is almost a two person job one guy to open and close and smoke, and one to put in the strips. I just get a small dish pan and dump 2 packets in and the juice and pull them out of there. The hop guard did not hurt the virgins i was a bit worried that it might, but i got the best take of the year on those bees so i was happy.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Unfortunately I an, it is not registered in Canada and will likely take at least 2 more years before it is registered here, if ever it does get registered here.

Treatment in the winterin shed would be very nice and the right time to apply seeing as the bees would be broodless. This could work well with a fall treatment of formic acid, which in my experience slows the mites down but gives such variable results. Kinda like a one, two punch cmbination.

Jean-Marc


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## mmiller (Jun 17, 2010)

I've used hop guard for 2 seasons now with good success. My method is 3 treatments about 7 days apart. I use 2 strips per bood box with each treatment. Most of the hives will shread the strips and have most of it removed from the hive. In my experiance the mite count drops big time the first 2 times leaving very few mites. The 3rd doesn't really change much ( maybe see a mite ) with an alcohol shake. I've had hives with high mite loads that were dwindling fast and been able to turn them around and successfully winter them after hop guard treatments in summer. I don't think placing the strips would help much in winter as the bees need to come into contact for it to work properly. As for ease of use, I find it pretty simple. Place 2 strips in bottom brood box about 2 or 3 frames apart and same on the upper brood box. It is kind of messy and sometimes the bees will attack the strip and hands that have the "juice" on them although not always. This small "attack" is usually limited to the hive and I haven't seen them act aggressivly other than that. I consider it expensive at 3 treatments x4 strips per hive =12 strips for the season. I bag of Hop Guard has 50 strips at about $30. When you do the math it ain't cheap but in my experience it has worked very well. That said, it's too much money and I won't be using it next year for my 50 or so hives.

Mike


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Ill settle for Oxalic Acid. 



jean-marc said:


> Unfortunately I an, it is not registered in Canada and will likely take at least 2 more years before it is registered here, if ever it does get registered here.
> 
> 
> 
> Jean-Marc


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Ian said:


> Ill settle for Oxalic Acid.


I am curious about one thing now Ian. Are you concerned with :-

a) how many mites it kills
b) how easy is the application
c) possible use while in the wintering shed
d) registration / lack thereof ?


I'm guessing that it's easy to figure out your priorities on the first 3, but, where would you place the 4th in your list of priorities ?

Curious minds......


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Well, I'll tell you this, I dont plan on making a trip to get some, 
when it is registered in Canada Ill be the first in line to get some.
if thats what you mean

At our up coming beekeepers association meeting they have booked a speaker from Health Canada talking on illegal product imports and repercussions. Should be interesting


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## Tim Stewart (Jul 19, 2009)

I have heard that the strips kill brood if placed as directed, but don't when laid across the top bars. Thats, all I've heard, and i've never used them.


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## Tim Stewart (Jul 19, 2009)

interesting the strips look like some of the delivery methods used for amitraz? :lookout:


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

if it works right,.?


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## mmiller (Jun 17, 2010)

Tim Stewart said:


> I have heard that the strips kill brood if placed as directed, but don't when laid across the top bars. Thats, all I've heard, and i've never used them.


I've not experienced any brood loss. I've been very happy with how well Hopguard works and would be great for some with 4 or 5 hives. It's too expensive if you have very many hives though. 

Mike


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