  Using recent experimental results of detection of gravitational waves from
the binary black hole signals by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, we
investigate the propagation of gravitational waves in the context of fourth
order gravity nonminimally coupled to a massive scalar field. Gravitational
radiation admits extra massive modes of oscillation and we assume that the
amplitude of these modes is comparable to that of the massless mode. We derive
the propagation equation and effective mass for each degree of freedom and we
infer, from the current observational data, constraints on the free parameters
of the gravity models we considered. In particular, for $f(R)=R-R^2/R_0 $, the
constraint obtained from the speed of gravitational waves is not compatible
with the one set by Solar System tests, which implies that amplitude of the
massive modes could not be detectable with current experiments on Earth
