They don't help much against wild yeast but they are pretty effective against souring ie lactobacillus. That was the main reason for them to be incorporated. Otherwise beer turns sour fairly quickly, which doesn't have to be a bad thing btw.Hops originally went into beer because they were a preservative against spoilage by wild yeasts/bacteria. They may also drop the starting pH a bit (I'm not sure about that).
There are hop resistant strains of yeast and various bacteria (lacto, pedio). In this case, whatever keeps the bucket smelling nice doesn't deal with hops except occasionally, so I don't want to make life too hard on them initially.
If they can't handle hops at all, maybe it'll be good for cider. TBD!