Your problem falls under the general category of "coupon collector's problems". There is a large literature on such problems, mainly concerned with formulas for the mean and variance of the random variable $T$. The exact distribution of the time $T$ to have at least one bean ($N=1$) in each box is known in terms of Stirling numbers of the second kind: see [Henry's answer here][1]. In general, I think you should take Alekk's advice and use the Poisson approximation. [1]: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/26528/m-balls-n-boxes-probability-problem