> 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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