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Author Topic: Hopguard?  (Read 17938 times)

Offline D Coates

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Hopguard?
« on: January 05, 2011, 12:05:11 pm »
Does anyone have any experience with Hopguard?  What is in it and what are your thoughts of it?
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Offline AllenF

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2011, 01:02:20 pm »
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.

Offline danno

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2011, 01:30:54 pm »
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

Offline Cascadebee

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2011, 01:46:51 pm »
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?

Offline danno

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2011, 01:57:05 pm »
hops are high in alpha acids and beta acids.   Its the beta acids that kill mites

Offline nella

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2011, 02:38:22 pm »
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?

Offline hardwood

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2011, 02:41:26 pm »
I've been drinking beer for years and I've never had a mite on me.

Scott
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

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Offline AllenF

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2011, 02:42:14 pm »
 :lau: :lau:

Offline D Coates

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2011, 02:53:06 pm »
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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Offline T Beek

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2011, 03:11:19 pm »
 :?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.

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Offline D Coates

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2011, 03:25:47 pm »
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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Offline Cascadebee

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2011, 03:58:50 pm »
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.

Offline lenape13

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2011, 05:35:07 pm »
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...

Offline hardwood

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2011, 05:57:24 pm »
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
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

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Offline AllenF

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2011, 06:02:42 pm »
Maybe instead of using powdered sugar, try a beer over the bees?

Offline VolunteerK9

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2011, 06:03:43 pm »
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.

Offline Zulu

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2011, 06:30:03 pm »
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.
Newbee 2011

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2011, 06:53:14 pm »
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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Offline T Beek

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2011, 07:07:25 pm »
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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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Hopguard?
« Reply #19 on: January 05, 2011, 07:39:59 pm »

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.

* * *

> 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

 

anything