Chilling, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide have all been used in assays to make bees easier to handle.  All of these plus marking paints and handling can contribute to bee loss or increased susceptibility to the test treatment.


Before he passed, Larry Atkins and I compared notes.   Far too many investigators fail to limit handling stress.  For pesticide contact assays, some private labs put the bees to sleep at least three times.  Both Larry and I tried to slow down or immobolize bees for as short a time as possible before they 'woke'.  We agreed, done properly, bee loss from the handling (putting them to sleep) should have little effect.  But even a bit of delay can escalate losses, increase vulnerability to treatment.  For both of us, we had our techniques down to where if we got bee loss above 5% for the 'controls', we felt that we had compromised the trials.




Jerry







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