Dick asks, "is it necessary to kill the brood?"  and comments, I'd just
stab them.

If the brood is not killed (it may take some real effort to kill them
--  we had to swirl the needle -- especially with young larvae that just
float away from the utensil), the bees may simply repair the caps.

The hygienic test involves several behaviors, ranging from repair, to
uncapping, to disposal of dead brood.  Short cuts in the method may result
in testing a different behavior from the one that you want to assess.

Granted, some have done the prick test, but we're not fans of it -- too
much variability in response.

Jerry

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