HopGuard II

[WillH]

I decided to try new Hopguard II. Bought one package. It contains 24 strips in a sealed bag. BetaTec documentation says that Hopguard II is different from old version in that it contains 25 grams of HopGuard liquid while the Hopguard I contained only 12 grams of liquid. This makes it active for 12 days compared to 2 - 5 days in version 1. Also the cardboard is corrugated and stronger so the bees are not able to remove it soon. Directions say to put 1 strip per 5 frames of bees, so that makes 2 per brood box. For double brood box you need 4 strips. I was reading some research papers that indicates that one treatment only reduces mite load by 80% but 2 treatment 10 days apart reduces mite load by 97% and 3 treatments 10 days apart reduces mite load by 98%. I don't think 80% is enough so I am planning to do a second treatment in 10 days. So each hive will need 8 strips,  so for $40 you can only treat 3 hives, $13.33 per hive which is pretty expensive.

I have taken mite load using sugar shake method before treatment ( taken on August 26, 2014): Hive A: 5%, Hive B: 3%  Hive C:3%

I plan to do a similar testing in a month and will report readings here.

[Sweet!]

Hey, you may only need one application. See the Springer-Link open access publication:

DeGrandi-Hoffman. Population growth of varroa destructor in commercial honey bee colonies treated with beta plant acids. Exp Appl Acarol. 2014. s10493-014-9821-z. (I'm too new to hyperlink. Shoot me a message and I'll forward a PDF if you can't find it.)

It's the follow-up article to the 2012 publication in Experimental and Applied Acarology, which was published online this past May (2014). It's done with HopGuard I, but suggests that if you're applying the treatment during the broodless period (which you would appear to be doing), one application is as effective as 3. See page 11, under the November counts. Bottom of the page.

Could save a few $$.

I'm applying HGII as well, but it's following an oxalate dribble in August. I applied that dribble to knock the counts down as suggested in the article above; mite counts in the fall were lower in hives pre-treated in August, though all of the fall counts were much higher than predicted.

I used oxalate on brood because I was just trying to knock the counts down, not eliminate them, in anticipation for the treatment this month. I'm checking my hives for brood this weekend. When it's gone, I'll treat.

I will say that the dribble tripled my daily mite drop when I checked the hive counts second week after application.

[Sweet!]

FYI, applied HGII last Wednesday as indicated--2 strips per deep super. Mites are falling like rain. I'll do a mite count in a week or 2.

[Sweet!]

Completed my mite counts yesterday at 3 weeks after application. All 3 hives showed counts of <1% by the alcohol wash method. HGII appears to have been very effective when used during this period of minimal to no brood, with the mites left out in the general population of the hive and directly exposed to treatment.

Of course, in my case, this is an N of just 3 hives. And the alternate caveat is that this was applied on top of the 3.5% oxalate dribble (by weight, in syrup) in early August.

WillH, I don’t know your experience, but I did notice a portion of bees in each hive that seem to have been digested a bit by the acid syrup on the strips—kind of like drops of lava falling on them when the strips were applied. I inserted the strips pretty much straight out of the package, per directions. I wonder if they should be run (squeegeed?) through your fingers (gloved) before application to remove the excess syrup? Still, we’re only talking about a few bees here. Many times fewer than were sacrificed during the alcohol wash.
 
Also, as a newbee, I was surprised at how difficult it was to get a half cup of bees at this time for the wash—the population is reducing, and the bees were rather evenly distributed throughout the two deeps (it was 64^o F yesterday during the sampling period) and each hive required several “scoops” to get the numbers needed. (I really hope I didn’t scoop up one of the Queens….) Add this to the fact that they were pretty ornery about the sampling (well, it is November, I guess) and I have to say I prefer the sticky board sessions that I used for mite counts during the on-brood period in July.
 
On the other hand, the alcohol wash method was incredibly fast and efficient. I can see being able to rip through a rather large bee yard pretty quickly using this method.