Randy is starting a beehive so that he can have fresh honey. He decides to check the current population of bees in the hive by marking 160 bees. Later, Randy collects 240 bees and observes that 30 of them are marked. What is the BEST estimate for the bee population?

Question

Randy is starting a beehive so that he can have fresh honey. He decides to check the current population of bees in the hive by marking 160 bees. Later, Randy collects 240 bees and observes that 30 of them are marked. What is the BEST estimate for the bee population?
Responses
A	1,2801,280
B	1,2001,200
C	1,2401,240
D	1,300

Bot · Answer

We can use a proportion to estimate the bee population. Let x be the total number of bees in the hive:

Number of marked bees in the hive / Total bee population = Number of marked bees collected / Total bees collected

We have:

160/x = 30/240

Solving for x, we get:

x = (160 * 240) / 30 = 1,280

Therefore, the BEST estimate for the bee population is 1,280. The answer is (A).