Hi, a friend of mine, working on bees in Israel is doing just the same: i.e. shocking the bees with carbon dioxide. He says it's always succeeded and that the bees are not harmed. This method may leave you with as much as 5 minutes and can even be applied more than once. Cheers, Rivka Nokrian, Israel. On Fri, 6 May 1994, Blair J. Sampson wrote: > Liz, > Cooling bees slows down their metabolism. They go into a brief > period of hibernation. As long as their tissues do not freeze and the > bees are well fed, they will do fine. I also found that a short blast of > carbon dioxide will induce brief narcosis. The advantage of this is you > reduce the bees exposure to extreme temperatures during photo > op's. > > Blair, >