Peter,
That's pretty interesting.
Here is the link to the article which you mentioned.
https://beeinformed.org/2023/10/03/lessons-from-riding-shotgun-in-the-bee-truck/
Lesson #4: Never underestimate the power of the Varroa mite
On one long drive in early August, Kim Guillemette, my co-field specialist in the South Central, and I were comparing methods of doing alcohol washes. Kim casually mentioned that the mites don’t actually die in the alcohol because they can hold their breath. I turned and looked at her like she was crazy (sorry Kim) — alcohol kills invertebrates, and I’d done hundreds of alcohol washes and those things floated around like they were long gone. I needed to see this for myself. Over the next few days, I watched in astonishment as mites that had been sitting in alcohol for 10, 30, and even 60+ minutes picked themselves up out of our sampling sieve and scurried across the truck bed. As I dropped them in a test tube to send away for amitraz resistance testing, they climbed BACK UP out of the tube (and continued to do this each time I pushed them down like the little menaces they are). In case I needed more evidence of what a formidable enemy Varroa are, this was it.