Good deal! California is just plain a pain in the ass when it comes to such goodies. Been down that road with them sending bees out there and it's no fun. Bad enough a lot of the beekeepers build extra pallets they can wash and clean up, then transfer the hives onto clean pallets, sitting on plastic in the loading yards. They fuss about spider webs, they fuss about dirt, they fuss about leaves, they fuss about anything that resembles a plant of any nature. They put cans of cat food on all 4 corners and the middle of the trailer, trying to attract ants, and if one ant shows up to eat it, they turn your truck around. At which point you send him to Nevada, where there is a couple companies that make a living unloading, cleaning, and reloading bee trucks, so they can get into California. Costs you about $4,500.
Pulled in there one time with empty equipment and a fly fell off the net. Nephew said the guy at the inspection station went ballistic. Shoved him back, gets out his tweezers and sample bottle. He told him it was a damn fly, and it was his damn fly, because the truck had been parked outside in sub-zero temps for 10 days, warmest it had got was -9, had been in freezing temps until he got to California, he was pretty sure it didn't land on the truck in ND, or anywhere up to the truck-stop 50 miles back. Held him up for 3 hours while they got a entomologist chased down to look at pictures of a fly.
Next trip they got all spun up over a half teaspoon of sugar on the truck bed, under 12,000 lbs. of sugar. Then they tried to tell me, how I should have tied the truck down. Dingbats haven't ever tied a truck down in their life, and they're trying to tell me how to do it. Wouldn't let us leave until they had an address where the equipment was going, so they could send the bee inspector out. Nephew told them, "It's going to a cow pasture out in the middle of nowhere south of Coalinga, there isn't an address there, and it's empty equipment, it doesn't get inspected." Wouldn't let us leave. Finally gave them the address at the motel to get out of there. Bee inspector called up 2 days later looking for the load of bees that were supposed to be at the Motel 6. Told him, "It was empty equipment." He said, "We don't inspect empty equipment." Nephew told him, "I know! I told them that at the inspection station, but they wouldn't let me leave until I gave them a damn address, so I gave them an address!" Told him where to find it, if he wanted to look at it, and said, "Have fun!"
They're idiots! Fumigate your shipping container before it leaves!!
