Allen writes:
>I can see you and I are looking at things from very different perspectives and this is quite fascinating.  I am a commercial beekeeper.  Losing one hive sixty miles away, especially if it is already over the hill, is of academic interest to me only....I am looking at the big picture and thinking of entire yards, rather than individual hives.


OK. Say you are trying to determine levels of varroa in several apiaries as economically as possible. You took 175 bees per apiary, that is 175 per let's say 400,000 bees. Very low levels of infestation simply would not show up at this sampling rate. Plus, I think taking samples at the edge of the cluster is a mistake.

But how would I design the experiment? I would go to five hives per apiary and take normal samples (250) right out of the middle of the cluster. This would take no more time than what you did, and give more information.

pb