> I have seen conflicting advice on how many hives to sample.
This is a very difficult decision to make. I sampled every hive in a yard
for a couple of years, when running about 500 colonies. Yes, there would be
a few with high levels.
It appears to me that as my stock becomes more uniform, the variability
decreases somewhat. I do notice yard to yard variability of levels, and
season to season variability (this year is a low mite year for me). This
week, I'm deciding to treat about half the yards that I test.
The trade off is the labor cost of sampling vs what kind of losses you
experience due to mite levels. 10% would be a practical target for a
commercial operator.
What I try to do is to just maintain an overall "feel" for what my mite
levels are all year. Lots of spot sampling, rather than a more rigorous
program.
Randy Oliver
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