Are erythrocytes lysed during alpha hemolysis?
Alphahemolysis simply oxidizes hemoglobin to methemoglobin and causes a color change on blood-agar. The RBC membrane is left in tact as far as I know. If you look at a picture of the 3 types of hemolysis, you will see that there is no zone of clearing in the alphahemolysis plate. Compare that to the obvious zone of clearance observed on the betahemolysis plate, in which complete lysis occurs. Here is a nice picture