Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: D Coates on January 05, 2011, 12:05:11 pm
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Does anyone have any experience with Hopguard? What is in it and what are your thoughts of it?
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It was just approved for use this fall and only for the PNW. I don't believe it has made it into the stream for the beekeepers yet, but I might be wrong. It should be good got the hops industry and it is always good to have alternative to switch around with treatments to keep the mites from becoming resistant.
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I grow hops at my farm and always wondered what the bee's saw in it. When the cones are ready to pick the bee's are all over them. Maybe they new something about this before we did
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Hop oils are strongly antibiotic. The civilized world has known this since hops were first used in beer.
Is that what this hopguard is about?
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hops are high in alpha acids and beta acids. Its the beta acids that kill mites
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I grow hops at my farm and always wondered what the bee's saw in it. When the cones are ready to pick the bee's are all over them. Maybe they new something about this before we did
Danno, do you think you get any mite control from the hop vines that your bees visit?
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I've been drinking beer for years and I've never had a mite on me.
Scott
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:lau: :lau:
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It's in the latest Mann Lake beekeeping newsletter but it went into no specifics except to give its positive properties, useage and that it could be used even during honey flow.
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:?Its a new one by me, but.....I also grow hops and brew my own beer and as it happens the hops are very close to my hives and like someone said above the bees seem to love em.
Don't know if it matters at all but I have never had a real mite problem, perhaps that's why :? Is that what they're selling it for?
Very cool, very interesting, unless its just some more hype to get beeks to buy another product.
thomas
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I just found this quoted from honeybeesuite.com:
HopGuard is a new pesticide designed to kill Varroa mites. Although the product is not yet registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), three states have joined together to request a Section 18 Emergency Exemption to use the product in honey bee hives within the boundaries of those states. The Washington State Department of Agriculture, the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, and the Oregon Department of Agriculture submitted the request to the EPA on August 23. Working with the three agencies is BetaTec Hop Products, the maker of HopGuard and a wholly owned subsidiary of John I. Haas, Inc. of Yakima.
Section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) allows an unregistered product to be used in certain regional areas when an emergency pest situation exists and there is no viable alternative method of control. The three states argue that the seven pesticides currently approved for use on Varroa mites in the region are either ineffective or impractical to control the mites in commercial hives.
So what is HopGuard? HopGuard is made from one of the organic acids found in the hop plant, Humulus lupulus. An organic acid is simply a carbon-containing compound with acidic properties. Some of the current Varroa treatments also use organic acids, including ApiLife Var and ApiGuard, both of which contain thymol (found in thyme) and MiteAway II, which contains formic acid (similar to that found in fire ants.)
Hops contain two prominent organic acids, alpha acids—known to brewers as “flavor” hops—and beta acids, known as “aroma” hops. It is the beta acids that have been found to have anti-Varroa properties.
The new formulation is 16% beta acids painted on cardboard strips which will be used in the brood boxes. Two strips per brood box will be used up to three times per year. Since the product contains only “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) ingredients, the manufacturer believes the product can be used in the hives anytime—even during a honey flow.
The manufacturer is seeking registration as a biopesticide (short for biochemical pesticide) which is the EPA term for a naturally-occurring pesticide.
Will it work? In my opinion, organic acids are excellent pesticides because of their safety to both bees and the planet. However, in the past they have received only moderate acceptance in the beekeeping community—mostly because daytime temperatures and the brood-rearing cycle must be closely monitored. In addition, the hives usually must be made into “fumigation chambers” for the organic acids to work properly. This is time-consuming and hard on the bees.
Will HopGuard be any different? Only time will tell. In my experience the thymol products have worked great. But since I am not a commercial beekeeper, I have the time and inclination to fiddle around with the exacting conditions that allow those products to be effective. If HopGuard is simpler to use, it could revolutionize mite control, but the jury is still out. More data are needed.
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Cool, thanks for posting this D. Love me some hops.
Looks like they're not exploiting the antibiotic properties of hops which possibly could be incorporated into feed for AFB etc control?
That varroa is controlled by beta acids is somewhat surprising to me. If you've grown hops or worked around the industry, you know the hop aphid has no problem with any part of the plant.
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Guess I might have to plant some hops this year... and then the neighbor can brew some beer afterwards, along with his wine producing.... Got to help everyone...
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If the product is derived from the "aromatic" hops and as another thread suggests SHB might be attracted to beer...I wonder if it will lure in the SHB???
Scott
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Maybe instead of using powdered sugar, try a beer over the bees?
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If the product is derived from the "aromatic" hops and as another thread suggests SHB might be attracted to beer...I wonder if it will lure in the SHB???
Scott
'For every action there is an equal an opposite reaction.' Knowing our luck in the SHB prominent south, probably so.
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As a brewer, hops grower and about to be beek, I can actually answer some of this.
All hops have both Alpha and Beta Acids , some varieties more % than others. The Bitterness is qualified by Alpha acids in the hops and expressed as the Alpha Acid % . In brewing we isomerise these by boiling to "dissolve the acids into the sweet wort. The longer the boil the more bitterness we extract, by same token the less we boil the more we keep just the aroma / flavor acids without bittering.
The big boys like Bud , Coors etc only use Bittering , which they pay for in % Acid per ton, thus they only look for the strongest bittering hops. It is the craft brewing and homebrewing industry which has kept alive and also created many more varieties of flavor and aroma hops. As a Beer judge I can most of the time tell you what variety of hops were used in a brew
Hops in all but wild vines (also called bines correctly) are female only plants , propagated by vegetative division of the Rhizomes put out in Spring, to ensure the extract same properties as the original. When ripe you can see the "pollen" which contains the acids in the base of the bracts of the green hops flower cone and it is this which makes them so aromatic, it is also incredibly sticky, which may be why it works to keep mites at bay. I have some close up pics somewhere and will try to add them back here later (in airport now)
They are as easy to grow as weeds, once you get the Rhizome to take. I pass on and sell numerous Rhizomes each year to people wanting to try grow them. You MUST choose a place that you can contain them in the home garden as within 2 years you will have runners everywhere , just like Bamboo, they are perennial dying back at the first frost, and they make a wonderful Trellis cover for summer , growing up to a foot a day in full spring weather.
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Hopguard has created quite a stir here in the PNW.
As a side note my brother's neighbor grows hops on the fence seperating the properties. My brother's hives have a very low mite count compared to my hives, which are Russian or survivor resistant. Makes it worth considering raising hops as a green forage for the livestock and as a miticide for the bees.
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Zulu! Welcome to the forum from another beek/brewer/hop grower (getting ready to pop open an IPA right now). We add a bit or more honey to each batch.
Thanks for the info. When are you getting bees?
thomas
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I got this snip from BEE-L - RDY-B
There is another one in the works, too. Hop Guard is a product of the hop industry. They tout hop extracts for a variety of ailments, including cancer. However, I would point out that there is a huge glut of hops on the market so there may be other motives for trying to bring hop products to market.
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> An unprecedented hop supply surplus. In crop year 2008, 2,600 tons of the alpha harvested was surplus to requirements; in crop year 2009, the surplus alpha amounted to 3,500 tons. The 2010 crop will probably add another 1,000 - 2,000 tons of alpha to this surplus. In total, by the end of the 2010 marketing campaign growers and merchants will be left with stocks of surplus hops amounting to approximately one year's production. Before the 2010 harvest has even started, the warehouses of the trading companies are bursting at the seams with hops harvested in crop years 2008 and 2009 which have been sold but not yet shipped.
> For one thing is clear. The faster the hop industry is able to eliminate the structural hop surplus, the faster the markets will enter a phase of recovery. The longer it takes to remove this surplus, however, the bigger the surplus stocks will become and the longer it will take the market to absorb the surplus. Experience shows that these old stocks are sold at rock-bottom prices and will thus affect markets for years to come, even if everything has returned to normal in structural terms. For that reason time is of the essence, especially here in Hallertau.
Press release from the German Hop Industry Association
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Grow your own 8-)
thomas
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. Been reading since Christmas and lurked on most of the forums since then, now from voracious reading I feel I can emerge and bee known.
I hope to have bees around April hopefully.
IPA in secondary fermenter and a nice 8% Scotch Ale on tap , plus Christmas Ale and Wet Hopped ale from Oct still has some.
S. German (Bavaria) Pilsner planned for this weekend.
as for the glut of Hops , yep , after the disaster in 2006 when a million lbs were burnt in a warehouse fire and the crop in Europe failed, and lastly the reserves that big boys had hidden were not enough to cover the losses, 1000's more acres were planted after that and prices came down a lot. The biggest distributors are now converting excess Hops into Hop Oils, this is stable compared to keeping plant material, so for average user the price is not back to 2001 pricing like we hoped.
Another interesting fact is that Breweries like Sierra Nevada are growing their own hops and also creating new varieties out of their own labs.
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Yeah, my taste buds love some of what the SN people are trying to accomplish (we're in the sticks, but I've got an in whenever a load of their ESTATE Ale comes in), The folks at dogfishhead are also inpiring and had a great (only 6 weeks) program on the discovery channel recently. In last few years several folks around here have been trying to cash in on the "losses" from years back by growing hops, only to find the market full. I keep telling them to start a co-op brewery. We'll see.
For now we only batch a couple at a time, give away about half, 2 batches every three weeks or so, Been calling myself (in my own head) the BBBBman as most of my treasured activities (Beekeeping, Brewing, Bread making and playing music with my Band) take up most of my time. And my wife makes Hand-Bags 8-) Good luck with your bees. You'll learn plenty around here.
thomas
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One of the posts also mentioned that Bees are attracted to beer and questioned maybe it was hops in the beer,
No, beer still has a lot of Maltose sugar, and even a dry beer still has sugar in it.
When I am brewing they sniff around a lot with all the sweet wort - maltose sugars - before it goes into the fermenter with yeast.
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You must be boiling outside then, right? I still boil on the kitchen stove, gonna buy a huricane with a ten gallon pot for this year. When I dump the baged grain residue into my compost pile, hornets (not honeybees) are all over it.
I agree though, its more likely the sugar/malt they're after rather than hops when thinking beer. I'm very intrigued by this hopguard stuff (not that I'll buy any) as a hop grower and beek, another form of companion farming I spose ;)
thomas
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Just saw on a local beekeeper/Mann Lake supplier that they will be selling Hop Guard this year. I didn't see anything in the on line catalog but I assume it will be added soon.
Tim
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We started growing hops before we got bees on our endless page fence and we warned about the proliferation. It really hasn’t happened yet. This spring will be the third year of growth with five plants started we are down to three and will see how many survive the winter this year. We plan on planting more in the spring regardless of what the outcome is. Is there a way to propagate the plant to get multiples? We have about a couple thousand feet of fence to work with. Also do hops prefer sun or shade?
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Grow hops in full sun on line supports as tall as your willing/able to contruct.
They're very hardy, should have no problem growing and having them survive winters by you, there are plots of hops gone wild all over Wisconsin.
thomas
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Height is not an issue for us. The fence is 6 feet page with another foot of barbed wire. The soil may be an issue as it is at the perimeter of ashfault pavement. The Mohawk Valley was once a premiere hops growing area and still has "Schultz and Dooley" (Utica Clubs West End Brewery), now Saranac in existence. That is what makes me think it is soil related.
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Most folks I know who grow hops (myself included) are growing on lines upwards of 10-15 feet high. I've seen fields of them climbing up 20 ft tamarack poles.
You may want to read up a bit on required conditions for optimal yields. Anthing less than 10 feet will result in a mess at some point, due to the entangling of vines (which should be trimmed back early each season to just 2 min-4 max).
thomas
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Yes, the vines are very harty. Almost impossiple to get out of a page fence. We feel the mess is prettier than the barbed wire. Part of our intention is to pretty up the page fence and wire. We would have to get a permit to go higher. We don't harvest the crop.
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They do make a lovely living fence, as does the mexican bamboo mentioned around. And bees love em both :)
thomas
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We started growing hops before we got bees on our endless page fence and we warned about the proliferation. It really hasn’t happened yet. This spring will be the third year of growth with five plants started we are down to three and will see how many survive the winter this year. We plan on planting more in the spring regardless of what the outcome is. Is there a way to propagate the plant to get multiples? We have about a couple thousand feet of fence to work with. Also do hops prefer sun or shade?
you propagate by root division. 3rd year roots can be split. We grow ours up our silo on ropes and also up 2 power pole with ropes run up to eyebolts. For harvest we can lower the ropes to the ground
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We grow ours up our silo on ropes and also up 2 power pole with ropes run up to eyebolts.
Hey that might be an idea for our pole in the garden.
(http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv333/acebird1/Garden/Garden002.jpg)
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Picture's worth a thousand words Acebird :-\
thomas
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We grow ours up our silo on ropes and also up 2 power pole with ropes run up to eyebolts.
Hey that might be an idea for our pole in the garden.
(http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv333/acebird1/Garden/Garden002.jpg)
hops grows a couple of feet a week so your going to need a taller bike
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You can't even find that bike in the summer. This is late spring.
(http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv333/acebird1/Garden/Garden2010004.jpg)
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As a... hops grower... I can... answer some of this... They [hops] are as easy to grow as weeds... You MUST... contain them in the home garden as within 2 years you will have runners everywhere , just like Bamboo... growing up to a foot a day...
(Typing real slow... so Idee can keep up with me) You talking bout them thar hops there son... or are you taking bout that thar kudzuuu? ;)
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So my first hive is flourishing and my hops are growing well too.
Found out Hopguard is a by product of real hops, they process out the Beta acids for making this product, whereas in brewing we are using mostly the Alpha Acids for the bitterness. Obviously we still have Beta acids too,and I am researching what part they play in Brewing
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Do you think I can extract something off my hops for killing mites as opposed to buying the product. I have lots of hops of varying alpha acids.
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hops grows a couple of feet a week so your going to need a taller bike
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You do see that power pole don't you?
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Do you think I can extract something off my hops for killing mites as opposed to buying the product. I have lots of hops of varying alpha acids.
No save it for beer. Hopguard is not made from alpha acids. It made from potassium salt of hop beta acids