Sterile

I went to the Northeast Indiana Beekeepers Assoc. meeting and found out about a hive sterilization that was being offered at a one day only special discounted price. It was strongly suggested that beekeepers who suffered winter losses should take advantage of the offer. All I needed to do was wrap individual components of the hive in doubled plastic garbage bags and get them to Iotron Industries by 10 AM the next morning. It sounded easy, and then reality set in. It was similar to dressing an 80 lb. uncooperative baby...who was very sticky. J saw me struggling and offered to help, but he was so crabby that I suggested several times that I could do it by myself. Once the pieces were all bagged, it was difficult to tell which end was up. Later I found it made no difference, during the process each item is turned over to be treated from the other side and sent around on the conveyor again. The bagging, packing into my small car, and the actual process took a lot longer than I'd planned, and I wish I'd collected all the honey first. The instructions said full honey frames could go through the electron accelerator sterilizer, but what they didn't say was the wax would completely melt and it would end up as an even stickier mess. By the time the hive was reassembled in place I was exhausted and collapsed for a lovely three hour nap.  If I ever need to do this again, I 'll remove all the honey from the hive first, especially since I wasn't adding bees right away. My whole life is just one long live and learn from the resulting mayhem existence.