. 

In my first post on this topic I offered:

> Opening the hive and disturbing the cluster to collect bees in cold weather can be detrimental to the colony, and may even kill it. --Stevenson, J. H. (1966). A Method of Obtaining Active Worker Honeybees in Winter for Experimental Use. Journal of Apicultural Research, 5(1), 63-64.

> Factors against winter treatment are the bad effects of disturbing the winter cluster of bees and the difficulty of observing the reactions of the bees to the chemical substance. -- Guy D. Morison Ph.D., M.Sc. (1931) Comments on Chemical Treatment of Acarine Disease, Bee World, 12:8, 89-90

Both of these sources refer to the potential harm to the colony of disturbing it in winter as if it were a known fact. Going back in time, Burton Gates states in 1914:


Good points Pete,  but extremely antiquated and as I see, it not relevant data.  

The above references don’t show follow up data.  Just speculation  I quote "may even kill it" of course that short reference cites is talking about a method to retrieve workers for experiments.  Were not talking about that.

The second is about trying to observe effects the reactions of the bees, again,  not what we are discussing

The above beekeepers were not dealing with Varro.

What we are talking about is not opening the hive and moving frames in sub zero weather,  we are as I understood it talking about sublimation,  inserting fumes under the cluster for a 2-3 minute periods,  actually inducing heat into the hive,  not cold.  Yes  I can tell you for certain it wakes up the cluster,  they buzz,  the expand,  them reform. 

One needs to weigh the risk and the merits,  and interpret the data.  

Obviously we know opening the hive is not good when its cold,  but one has to weigh  the merits of cracking the lid to see if they need feed to the option of letting them starve,  so it is with mites and winter clusters.


Charles

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