Saturday, February 25, 2006
Delicacies.
Good Sunday morning,
Time for some delicacies.
Bird nests
Swifts are birds. They are about the size of sparrows.
They weave their nests with their saliva. The female
swift regurgitates a strand of saliva from its glands
under its tongue and weaves it onto the wall of the
cave to form a semicircular cup shape nest. These
nests are for them to lay their eggs and nurture their
young.
It takes a swift one month to make its nest. It takes
three weeks for its eggs to hatch. And it takes another
three weeks for its nestlings to grow. After this it does
not need its nest, which can then be harvested.
But if the nest is removed before the eggs are laid, the
female swift will have to make another nest as soon
as possible, in a much shorter time, three weeks.
A third nest will take a still shorter time, two weeks.
A replacement nest puts great pressure on the female
swift, and often blood comes out for it, colouring the
nest.
And people eat these nests ! They are delicacies.
Bee honey
Bees make honey by extracting the nectar of flowers,
processing it and regurgitating it as honey. The honeybee
will fly about 800 km in her working life and produce just
half a teaspoon of honey. To produce one pound of honey,
the bees travel as far as 50,000 miles and visit more than
2,000,000 flowers.
To maximise their production, the bee hives are moved
from site to site to follow the flowering of the plants. As
most plants only flower for a few months in a year, a
beekeeper may move these bees about six to eight times
each year.
The bees gather the nectar and converts it into honey
to fill their hives, and store it as food for the winter.
Sometimes the bees make more honey than they eat.
Commercial beekeepers usually extract all the honey
during autumn and feed the bees with sugar syrup or
corn syrup for their winter needs. This feeding continues
in spring and early summer to give the bees an early start
in their manufacture of honey before the plants flower.
This explains how so much honey can be made by the bees.
And people eat bee honey or drink it ! It is invigorating.
Shark fins
A shark has a total of about eight or nine fins, depending
on the specie. An unlucky shark will be finned. Fining is
the process of cutting off only the fins of the shark and
discarding its whole body.
Sometimes the sharks are dead when they are pulled into
the boats. Often, they are still alive when most of their fins
are cut off with a knife. When they are thrown back into
the ocean the sharks either bleed to death or are drown,
because sharks cannot swim without fins, and they need
to go forward to get oxygen.
And people eat these shark fins ! They are delicacies.
Have a nice day.
Ronald
Time for some delicacies.
Bird nests
Swifts are birds. They are about the size of sparrows.
They weave their nests with their saliva. The female
swift regurgitates a strand of saliva from its glands
under its tongue and weaves it onto the wall of the
cave to form a semicircular cup shape nest. These
nests are for them to lay their eggs and nurture their
young.
It takes a swift one month to make its nest. It takes
three weeks for its eggs to hatch. And it takes another
three weeks for its nestlings to grow. After this it does
not need its nest, which can then be harvested.
But if the nest is removed before the eggs are laid, the
female swift will have to make another nest as soon
as possible, in a much shorter time, three weeks.
A third nest will take a still shorter time, two weeks.
A replacement nest puts great pressure on the female
swift, and often blood comes out for it, colouring the
nest.
And people eat these nests ! They are delicacies.
Bee honey
Bees make honey by extracting the nectar of flowers,
processing it and regurgitating it as honey. The honeybee
will fly about 800 km in her working life and produce just
half a teaspoon of honey. To produce one pound of honey,
the bees travel as far as 50,000 miles and visit more than
2,000,000 flowers.
To maximise their production, the bee hives are moved
from site to site to follow the flowering of the plants. As
most plants only flower for a few months in a year, a
beekeeper may move these bees about six to eight times
each year.
The bees gather the nectar and converts it into honey
to fill their hives, and store it as food for the winter.
Sometimes the bees make more honey than they eat.
Commercial beekeepers usually extract all the honey
during autumn and feed the bees with sugar syrup or
corn syrup for their winter needs. This feeding continues
in spring and early summer to give the bees an early start
in their manufacture of honey before the plants flower.
This explains how so much honey can be made by the bees.
And people eat bee honey or drink it ! It is invigorating.
Shark fins
A shark has a total of about eight or nine fins, depending
on the specie. An unlucky shark will be finned. Fining is
the process of cutting off only the fins of the shark and
discarding its whole body.
Sometimes the sharks are dead when they are pulled into
the boats. Often, they are still alive when most of their fins
are cut off with a knife. When they are thrown back into
the ocean the sharks either bleed to death or are drown,
because sharks cannot swim without fins, and they need
to go forward to get oxygen.
And people eat these shark fins ! They are delicacies.
Have a nice day.
Ronald
# posted by chunmu @ 5:07 PM 
