If the brood apartment has been much contracted when the supers were added, the queen may go into the sections and deposit eggs unless prevented by the insertion of a queen excluder ([fig. 13]). This, merely a sheet of zinc with perforations which permit workers, but not the queen, to pass, is placed between the brood apartment and the supers. The great inconvenience of having brood in some of the sections is thereby prevented. When the honey in the sections has been nearly capped over, the super may be lifted up and another added between it and the brood apartment. Or, should the strength of the colony not be sufficient, or the harvest not abundant enough to warrant the giving of so much space, the sections which are completely finished may be removed and the partly finished ones used as "bait sections" to encourage work in another set of sections on this hive or in new supers elsewhere. The objections to the removal of sections one by one, and brushing the bees from them, are (1) the time it takes, and (2) the danger that the bees when disturbed, and especially if smoked, will bite open the capping and begin the removal of the honey, thus injuring the appearance of the completed sections.
A recent valuable invention, the bee escape ([fig. 3]), the use of which is explained on [pages 15 and 16], when placed between the super and the brood nest, permits the bees then above the escape to go down into the brood apartment, but does not permit their reentering the super. If inserted twelve to twenty-four hours before the sections are to be removed, the latter will be found free from bees at the time of removal, provided all brood has been kept out of the supers.
Grading and shipping comb honey.—Before marketing the honey it should be carefully graded, and all propolis ("bee-glue"), if there be any, scraped from the edges of the sections. In grading for the city markets the following rules are, in the main, observed. They were adopted by the North American Bee-Keepers' Association at its twenty-third annual convention, held in Washington, D. C, in December, 1892, and are copied from the official report of that meeting:
Fancy.—All sections to be well filled; combs straight, of even thickness, and firmly attached to all four sides; both wood and comb unsoiled by travel stain or otherwise; all cells sealed except the row of cells next to the wood.
No. 1.—All sections well filled, but with combs crooked or uneven, detached at the bottom, or with but few cells unsealed; both wood and comb unsoiled by travel stain or otherwise.
In addition to the above, honey is to be classified, according to color, into light, amber, and dark. For instance, there will be "fancy light," "fancy amber," and "fancy dark," "No. 1 light," "No. 1 amber," and "No. 1 dark."
Fig. 13.—Perforated zinc queen excluder.