Bob Harrison <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>And if you look at the number of samples tested versus the 2 and a half
>million hives in the U.S. (most with a couple boxes of 9-10 frames each)
>what very very small segment of the total are we looking at . Not even a
>statistic worth discussing.

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. Most beekeepers have lost
bees, most have repopulated hives, but nobody really knows. How many here
have the same number of colonies they did three years ago? Or rather, how
many good colonies do you have? A hundred good ones is not the same as a
hundred duds or even a hundred nucs.

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. The hives studied "were mainly from migratory
operations, but also included smaller, non-migratory operations and the PSU
research apiaries, with operations represented from across the country".
THEY felt they had a pretty representative sample.

How many hives would you need to check from a given operation to get a basic
picture of the health of the outfit? 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? When you
check your yards to see if they need supering, do you need to open up every
single one? Or just a few?

pb

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