Canadian beekeepers may soon have a new weapon to battle varroa mites.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted approval in October for Hopguard, a new miticide that is derived from hops.
BetaTec, a German firm with operations in Washington state, is expected to launch Hopguard in Canada.
“Hopefully by early 2016 the company will submit an application in Canada to register this product,” said Medhat Nasr, provincial apiculturist in Alberta.
Nasr has been working with the company for four years to improve Hopguard’s efficacy on mites. As described on BetaTec’s website, the miticide is made with hops beta acids, which is the part of hops flowers that are used to preserve wort and provide flavour in beer.
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The EPA said Hopguard should be safe for honey because hops beta acids have been used for centuries to preserve meat and brew beer.
Varroa mites are the number one pest of beekeepers. The parasite saps bees of their energy and transmits disease into the hive. The mites can destroy an entire colony when their numbers are high enough.
Nasr said Canadian beekeepers need another option to kill varroa mites because they are highly dependent on one product, Apivar.
Beekeepers have been using Apivar since 2008 and many are worried the mites will soon develop resistance to amitraz, the active ingredient in the product.
Nasr said resistance is inevitable.
“It’s going to happen,” he said, noting varroa mites developed resistance to previous miticides after five to 10 years of use.
“We’ve been using Apivar from 2008 till now. Eight years already.”
Prairie beekeepers became particularly concerned this year that amitraz was no longer effective on mites.
“This fall I had several (Manitoba) beekeepers inform me that their varroa mite levels were much higher than expected, especially when they had treated the colonies in the spring,” Manitoba Agriculture apiculturist Rheal Lafreniere said in the Manitoba Beekeeper this fall.
Nasr said he had a similar experience in Alberta, where beekeepers found unusually high concentrations of mites in their hives after treating the colonies with amitraz.
Provincial apiculturists in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba conducted tests on hives to evaluate the efficacy of amitraz and found it controls varroa mites 95 percent of the time.
Nasr said varroa numbers in-creased in some western Canadian colonies this summer because beekeepers didn’t apply a sufficient dose of Apivar in the spring.
The beekeepers applied two strips of product per hive when they should have used three or four strips.
Apivar may still be effective, but beekeepers need another option to kill mites. Nasr said Hopguard, if registered in Canada, would allow honey producers to rotate chemistries.
“Once we have more tools in our varroa management box, that will give the beekeepers the ability to alternate or use combinations.”
