For those of you interested in HopGuard, I just received notification from Mann Lake Ltd. that Section 18 approvals have been issued in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Arkansas and Mississippi are supposed to be next.
HopGuard is a naturally occurring food-grade alternative to chemical pesticides. It has been found safe to use even in queen-breeding operations because it has no negative effect on egg laying.
For more information (and opinions) on HopGuard, please see HopGuard: the new Varroa pesticide and HopGuard: update.
For the record, I have no financial interest in either HopGuard or Mann Lake Ltd.
Rusty
Are you going to use it?
I have been doing really well controlling mites using a mix of IPM protocols. But I feel like it would be nice to have something “waiting in the wings” for that overwhelming mite population that explodes out of nowhere. Of all the “natural products” I have researched so far, this one seems to be the most truly natural.
Several years ago I had an outbreak of both deformed wing virus and chronic bee paralysis in one hive (both carried by mites) and it would have been nice to have something on hand that would kill the mites but not contaminate everything else. So, yes, I think I will try it–not across the board but as an experiment–and to have on hand “in case.”