The largest and most
extensive honey-maker is the "bambera". This is nearly as large
as a hornet, and it forms its nest upon the bough of a tree, from
which it lines like a Cheshire cheese, being about the same
thickness, but five or six inches greater in diameter. The honey
of this bee is not so much esteemed as that from the smaller
varieties, as the flavor partakes too strongly of the particular
flower which the bee has frequented; thus in different seasons
the honey varies in flavor, and is sometimes so highly aperient
that it must be used with much caution. This property is of
course derived from the flower which the bee prefers at that
particular season. The wax of the comb is the purest and whitest
of any kind produced in Ceylon. So partial are these bees to
particular flowers that they migrate from place to place at
different periods in quest of flowers which are then in bloom.
This is a very wonderful and inexplicable arrangement of Nature,
when it is considered that some flowers which particularly
attract these migrations only blossom once in "seven years." This
is the case at Newera Ellia, where the nillho blossom induces
such a general rush of this particular bee to the district that
the jungles are swarming with them in every direction, although
during the six preceding years hardly a bee of the kind is to be
met with.
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