Well last summer I was still finishing my thesis so my bees suffered from a
little bit of inattention (read PPB).  I did a three round dose of hopguard
each a week apart on all hives/nucs starting at the end of August and
ending beginning of September (ranging from 3-6 strips depending on
population size at the time).  Sorry no mite counts, see beginning of my
post.  I can tell you it was either too late or too ineffective to save the
ones that were struggling and mite problems were likely exacerbated by the
drought.

I had 11 hives at the start of treatment, one was lost to continued
stubborn queenlessness and 5 to mites.  The 5 remaining were all doing fine
as of yesterday.  5 of those hives were purchased as singles and had been
treated with Taktic and wintergreen just before I got them end of April,
four of them ended up succumbing to mites.  Remaining are 1 purchased hive,
1 split, and three from swarms and cutout I did (there's also a hive in a
log I got from a treeservice company too late in the year to do a cutout,
but I'm unsure of their current status, kind of hard to see or hear from
inside a log).

What I can tell you is that I won't be relying on hopguard for mite control
next year, I'll save my hops for my beer.  I'm not a fan of synthetics
because I don't like the idea of the residues, so I will probably try
formic this Spring unless I figure something else out.  I'm also starting a
yard of Russians, I have a very understanding wife who is taking a 9hour
car ride with me to go pick them up.  Sometimes I'm amazed at the crap she
lets me get away with.

Jeremy
West Michigan

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