"If I complete the wash quickly and dump the bees in the sun in front of the hive, most will get up and walk back in"
I have seen this many times. It may well make a difference what you use to wash. I use windshield washer fluid. Now, what I do not know is if those bees actually live for any significant time. There is no question that dumped in a warm sunny spot where they dry off fast many do get up and move. But, staying alive long enough to be productive after such an insult seems a bit unlikely to me. Between the methanol poisoning and damage from surfactants in the washer fluid I find it hard to think they are not damaged.
Dick
HL Mencken said: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. "
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