"One of the bee clubs in the New England states used to have a program for
radiation of equipment"...That would be the Worcester County Beekeepers
Association.  We use and Isomedix facility to irradiate to 2 megarads.  The
goal is to steilize known infected equipment, supers, empty comb, hive
tools, suits, and other stuff that may be infected.  The cost runs about US
$8 per box, the box is big enough to hold a deep, but the cost depends on
how many boxes we run.  There are some journal papers on the subject but I
don't have them with me.  I think I have put them up on Bee-L before, so
maybe an archive search would work.  Hope this helps.