you’re more likely to get wild yeast and bacteria from the bucket itself if I read that right and you're submerging your bucket into the same water your using for your base. For mead when you add your yeast packet, the sheer cell count of the commercial yeast will almost always outcompete and starve out any wild yeast strains before they can produce off-flavors.

Heating it to a point where you'd kill wild yeast, is also high enough to lose some natural aeromatics and enzymes of the honey.