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.
There are many varieties of the nillho.

These vary from a tender dwarf plant to the tall and heavy stern of the common nillho, which is nearly as thick as a man's arm and about twenty feet high.
The next honey-maker is very similar in size and appearance to our common hive bee in England.

This variety forms its nest in hollow trees and in holes in rocks.