>Nobody knows how many colonies there are in the US. The 2.4 million figure
you hear over and over again is the pre-CCD count.

Actually most commercial beeks consider the number higher because large
operators usually  claim less hives than they actually run especially in
areas where bee hives are taxed or charged a pre hive fee.

You may be surprised to know there are commercial beeks which have never 
filled out a survey or even attended a bee meeting. I have watched as 
commercial beeks with thousands of hives have tossed USDA surveys in the 
trash.


Also numbers are changing constantly so many  large beeks simply put the 
same
number down on surveys year after year.


>Statistics. I know next to nothing about this, but I would be very
>reluctant
to say that the sample size was too small to be significant, without
studying the topic a bit.

How could the number of hives sampled be even a percent of the total?  Even
a percent of a percent.

>THEY felt they had a pretty representative sample.

Despite what THEY think many of us feel THEY  barely scratched the surface
and are trying to somehow make those which did not get sampled believe that
what they found in the small amount of the CCD samples taken and tested
provides information on what is going on in our yards.

Peter asks my methods:

>How many hives would you need to check from a given operation to get a
>basic
picture of the health of the outfit?

As many as is needed. As often as needed.

>Suppose someone has 1000 hives.
Couldn't I get a pretty good sense of how he is doing by going to several of
his yards, and look at a few good ones and a few bad ones at each?

No! A commercial beek with a 1000 hives in Missouri (24 hives on 6 plts in a
yard) would run around 40 yards.

Would 3 yards tell the story with today's problems? I agree most bee
inspectors only visit a couple yards and look at a few hives.

In order to check a hive you need to at the very least  pop the lid. The 
trained eye can tell
quite a bit after a light smoke across the top. Looking at the entrance is 
better than nothing but popping the lid tells the most about a hive. After 
all these years I can pick a "dink" out quickly with the lid off. I can 
smell AFB. See the brood most times and the honey/pollen ring from the top.

When our bees return from almonds our inspector looks through every hive. He
takes as much time as needed and reports hives without queens and and
disease problems he sees. Random testing is less work for the bee inspector
but has a margin of error.

When problems I arise I pull the lids on the whole yard. Go into the ones
needed looked at .

>When you
check your yards to see if they need supering, do you need to open up every
single one? Or just a few?

I pull a frame of brood from each hive to make sure queen right and no
problems before placing a super. I then super as needed until the flow is
over. If the hive is not filling supers I dig into the brood nest to see
what is going on. Picked up a couple drone layer boxes about an hour ago. My
brood comb is excellent and replacement cost on a couple boxes of wax moth
trashed comb is worth the effort. Much easier to spend the time to pick up
the comb and place in a safe place.

A couple brood boxes without bees will become trash this time of year by wax
moth so I take the time to pull brood comb boxes which has no bees to
protect it.

bob

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