Hi Allen,

The other thing I forgot to write previously was that the number of bees sampled per colony, number of colonies sampled per apiary and number of apiaries sampled per operation depends on how mite levels vary within colonies, apiaries and operations respectively.  To illustrate this point consider an example; you want to predict what the infestation level within an apiary, but only have time to sample a single colony.  If mite levels do not vary AT ALL among colonies within an apiary, a sample from a single colony would predict the infestation within the yard quite well.  Obviously, infestation does vary from colony to colony within a yard.  The number of colonies you need to sample to provide a confident prediction, clearly will increase if sample more colonies.  The extent to which confidence increases with increased sampling thus depends on the colony to colony variation... and you need to experimentally determine the variation.

Incidentially, in the Canadian Pest Management survey, which will probably be published in the next issue of the Canadian Honey Council's excellent magazine Hivelights (http://www.honeycouncil.ca/chc-ccm/hivelite.html), 38% of beekeepers felt that varroa levels vary "CONSIDERABLY" among colonies within an apiary and 42% agreed their was "SOME" variation.  Only 18% felt that "all colonies in an apiary tend to have the same mite levels".

Regards,
Adony


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