I started this late summer of 2005. Please pay attention.
Your going to find out what NOT to do.
I had all these little eggs and lots of them hatched.
I very carefully gave them fresh mullberry
leaves to eat.
But they died.
I got some more eggs and very carefully
gave them fresh mullberry leaves to eat.
But they died too.
Was there something wrong with my mullberry leaves?
Maybe.
This time I was smarter.
I bought BIGGER silkworms from an online site.
They arrived in a damaged box.
Amazing enough almost all of them survived the trip.
I carefully divided they up by size
into separate containers,there were a lot of different sizes.
I went to my mom's and stripped her mullberry bush
and brought home different leaves
and fed them the fresh leaves.
They kept dying too. This is not good for my confidence.
I washed the leaves and carefully dried them.
Maybe there was something on the leaves
that was making them sick.
Nope they still kept dying.
I was ready to get a lizard to feed
so they wouldn't have passed in vain.
I got desperate,
my mullberry leaves were poisioned.
Well, something was wrong with them.
I ordered "Chow" for the hardy survivors.
Boy, there is nothing like the fragrance of
microwaved, powdered mullberry leaves, in the morning.
They fared better on this.
They seemed to do better but still all only 12
of the little silkworms made it to spinhood.
Of those brave little darlings, 10 managed to spin nice cocoons.
Trouble is they spun so far apart that
their emerging did not come very close together.
Male moth emerging.
Male moths
Female, see how large her abdomen is?
I would be nice to say that they mated, but alas,
the males were too old,although they really tried.
They sure got excited when the female
finally emerged.
There little wings were going a mile a minute.
Sadly it just didn't happen.
The males lasted about 5-7 days.
The female never did lay any eggs.
I'll try again this spring.
I have already found more mullberry trees
in the park near my house.
Well that was LAST YEAR.
Here it is 2006 already and I have a new batch of Bombyx Mori.
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