Serena's Bug Journal

Polyphemus babies

2010-05-14T19:41:00.004-04:00

I got some Antheraea polyphemus eggs, and they hatched today!

They are related to the Antheraea pernyi that I raised last year, only the polyphemus are native to North America and I can have them without a permit.

Adorable!

Praying Mantids

2010-05-09T08:55:00.002-04:00

I received a call last night from a reader asking about how to rear praying mantids. I've never done it, but I found these sites that give a decent description of how to do it.

http://www.earthlife.net/insects/mantodea.html

http://bugsincyberspace.com/mantid_care.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Praying-Mantis-Information&id=223721

http://www.buglogical.com/prayingMantis_control_aphids/prayingMantis.asp

http://www.insectlore.com/xlorepedia_stuff/praying_mantis.html

It seems like the most challenging thing when rearing them in captivity is providing them with enough food so that they don't eat each other. And if you breed them making sure that the female is well fed, or she'll eat the male after breeding!

I hope this helps!

Reeling Silk with the Piedmont Reel

2010-03-21T09:54:00.005-04:00

Last night Jeff delivered the Piedmont Silk Reel that he made for me. It is based off of a woodcut found in a silkworm rearing manual from the late 1500's. He got the measurements from a later document, since the first woodcut didn't come with any instructions on how to build it.

Here is the woodcut of the Piedmont Reel. It's from "The Perfect Vse of Silk-Wormes: and their benefit." by Olivier De Serres, translated by Nicholas Geffe in 1607.

The legs of the reel come off for easier transport, and it goes together really easily. Here is how it looks all set up.

Here you can see the part of the reel where the silk enters the reel. Below the reel, on the ground, there is a pot of hot water containing the cocoons. Between 14 and 20 filaments from cocoons are gathered together into one silk thread. The silk thread goes through a small copper wire spring, called a drop guide, which ensures that if a cocoon jumps up out of the water it will hit the drop guide and drop back into the water.

After the drop guide the silk thread is placed around two rollers. These help to gather all the filaments together and make the thread more cohesive. After the rollers the thread goes through a guide in the casting arm. The casting arm is attached to a wheel which is turned by twine attached to the bobbin crank. The casting arm moves the silk thread from one side of the bobbin to the other so that wet silk is not laid directly on top of other wet silk. Wet silk will stick to itself and then be impossible to remove from the bobbin.

The bobbin is large, which facilitates the silk drying before more silk thread is laid upon thread that are already there.

The best way to see how the reel works is to see it in action. Here is a video from one angle -

And here's a different angle -

This video shows the drop guide in action. Twice in this video you can see a cocoon that gets pulled up out of the pot of water, hits the drop guide, and drops back into the water. Worked perfectly!

Here is the silk once it was reeled onto the bobbin. It took probably 25 minutes to completely reel the silk from 14 cocoons. Each turn of the bobbin collects 60 feet of silk. I didn't count how many turns of the bobbin we did, but this is what the bobbin looked like when we were done. It was fast and easy, and everything worked out great!

The silk felt very dry on the bobbins, so I didn't bother to re-reel onto another bobbin. I still need to do that and I hope that I haven't made a mistake by allowing the silk to stay on the bobbin. I hope it doesn't stick to itself. That wouldn't be good!

It's a fantastic system and it's amazing that they came up with such a great machine in the 1500's. I love my reel. Thanks Jeff! :)

This time, I'm the one who is spinning

2010-02-27T22:37:00.010-05:00

After my adventures in reeling silk, it was time for me to do something with it. Namely, to spin it into usable thread. So I borrowed a spinning wheel, asked a lot of questions, got a ton of help, and got to work.

One thing that took me awhile to get my head around is that "throwing" is the process of twisting UNTWISTED filaments. So that is where I had to start, with throwing my silk. I have five videos which I narrated that pretty much explain the process. It's a much different operation than spinning wool, cotton, or combed silk.

Part 1 - The Wheel

This is what I learned about the wheel and how to make it work for my purposes.

Part 2 - Setting up the silk

Here I'm getting the silk set up and ready to spin.

Part 3 - Spinning

Actually spinning in this one!

Part 4 - Fixing a Broken Thread

I broke a lot of threads when I did this. Here is how I fixed that.

Part 5 - Wrapping the Bobbin

I've been told that if a new bump of silk is spun over an old bump that the new silk will cut into the old bump, making it tangle and become impossible to get back off the bobbin. Wrapping the bobbin prevents this.

I made two bobbins of silk from the four small spools that I had from reeling.
The next step in the process is to take the two bobbins of twisted thread and twist them in the opposite direction into one thread. Then I think it's called yarn.

Silk Reeling

2009-10-25T20:08:00.004-04:00

This is my first attempt at silk reeling, and I used two websites heavily for this setup - Wormspit and Silkewerk. Both of the authors of these pages have tons more experience than I do at this, so I was happy for the help that their pages provided. I used a combination of both techniques and setups to make my own.

The setup consisted of a Crock Pot, a twisted copper wire guide, a metal bobbin, a wooden bobbin, and a simple hand crank silk reel. I used 40 cocoons for this first attempt.

The Crock Pot is used to keep the cocoons hot so the sericin (the glue that holds the silk together to form the cocoon) is soft and the silk can be reeled. The twisted copper wire guide is set up in such a way that there are two loops that look like corkscrews. This is so it's easy to add new filaments to the reeled thread as a cocoon runs out of silk or a filament breaks. If I used a guide that was a solid ring it would be more difficult to add new filaments. This copper corkscrew type of guide is actually from the medieval period, which I like. I used a clamp to affix the guide to the side of the pot. The bottom loop helps keep the cocoons together and the top loop incorporates the filaments into one thread.

Then I needed to set up a bobbin someplace away from the pot so that the silk had some distance to travel between the pot and the reel. This is to help the silk dry before it gets laid down on the bobbin. If the silk is still very wet when it is reeled onto the final bobbin then the sericin will re-glue the silk back onto itself and the thread will never come off of the bobbin. The medieval reeling machines are larger than my reel and had some space between the pot and the reel. I decided I wanted as much space as possible, so I used a metal sewing bobbin on a nail driven through a board. I clamped this to the counter on the other side of the kitchen.

Since I would need to reel and tend to the cocoons at the same time, I set up the reel on the same table as the pot. The reel is just a simple hand crank reel, with no gearing of any kind. It was made by Farthegn (the same guy who made my awesome bug room in the basement) and the side comes off to replace the bobbin. I clamped this to the table and then I was all set to go.

I started off by soaking the cocoons in hot tap water in a mason jar (these jars were recommended because they are tough enough to handle extreme temperature changes, as you'll see in a minute). I put a glass on top that fit inside the jar to hold the cocoons under the water. I left it like this for five minutes.

In the meantime I heated up the Crock Pot and boiled some water. I filled the Crock Pot with the boiling water. Then it was time to empty the hot water from off of the cocoons and to fill the jar with cold water. Then I drained the cold water and put the cocoons in the Crock Pot. This change in temperature is supposed to help make it easier to find the end of the silk filament on the cocoons.

When the cocoons go in the hot water they will bubble and sizzle as they take in the water. The cocoons will fill up with water about 70% of the way. Since they don't completely fill with water they will float. I stirred them with a wooden skewer and poked each one under the water until they stopped bubbling and sizzling.

When the cocoons are done making noise then they are ready to reel. The first thing that has to be done is to find the "one true filament", meaning the one filament that is continuous, unbroken, and that makes up most of the silk in the cocoon. I decided that I wanted to work with around 10 filaments per thread, so I started by just stirring the pot with the skewer and lifting the cocoons out of the pot. Then I starting pulling off silk ends until I found the one filament on each of ten cocoons.

The cocoons have silk on the outside of them that is not part of the "one true filament". When the worm makes it's cocoon it lays down short filaments of silk as a foundation on which to build the cocoon. Before the worm makes the continuous filament the outside of the cocoon is already well started, but this silk on the outside has the short filaments and can't be reeled in one piece. So this silk must be removed in order to find the desired filament.

Once the selected filaments have been threaded through both loops, around the metal bobbin, and wound onto the wooden bobbin then reeling can begin in earnest!

Here you can see the cocoons in the pot jumping around. The jumping ones are being unreeled and as the silk comes off of them they jerk around. The reeling also makes a slight hissing sound, which you can't hear because the metal bobbin and the reel makes such a racket.

Here is the noisy metal bobbin at work.

When a filament would break or a cocoon ran out of filament I had to add another filament to replace it. You want there to be a consistent thickness of thread so you want to make sure you keep the number of filaments as consistent as possible. So I did a lot of pausing to count filaments and make sure I kept between 10 and 12 filaments going. Sometimes I got down to eight, and at times I was as high as 14. But for the most part I think my thread is pretty even.

Here is how I replaced a filament. Experienced reelers can replace a filament without stopping the reel. There was no way I could do this, and when I noticed a broken filament all reeling came the a screeching halt so I could add a new one.

I also had the whole thread break a few times, so I just tied the broken ends together. The knot was so small you couldn't even see it, and I snipped the free ends short so I shouldn't be an issue. At least I hope it won't be. During the reeling process I also had to watch out for stray, slubby silk that would sometimes get sucked up off of a cocoon and get incorporated into the thread. This makes a big ugly mess in the thread so I would have to pick that part out as gently as possible without disturbing the main thread.

As the cocoons are reeled they get thinner and more transparent. You can see some in this picture that are starting to get transparent and thin. They are towards the back of the group of cocoons.

Eventually the cocoon will run out of usable silk and will just drop off of the thread. Here is a picture of a cocoon that is done being reeled, and you can see the pupa inside. It's the dark looking thing in the upper left corner all by itself.

When I got to the point where I couldn't incorporate any more filaments into the thread, and I dropped down to eight threads per filament, I broke the filaments and stopped reeling. In this next picure you see what is left - a bunch of thin cocoons with pupae in them and the waste silk from the outside of the cocoons.

When it was all done, here is what the wooden bobbin looked like.

At this point the silk needed to be reeled off of the wooden bobbin and onto another bobbin to make sure that the silk is dry and is not sticking together. Unfortunately I didn't plan ahead and have extra bobbins on hand so I had to rig something up so I could reel from the bobbin onto a cardboard tube. Here is how that setup went.

I set up the wooden bobbin so it hung on a wooden dowel and would turn easily. I stuffed the cardboard tube with tissue paper and secured it with a rubber band to the reeler. Then I put the thread around the metal bobbin and onto the tube and started re-reeling.

My plan was to re-reel the whole wooden bobbin, but my arm got tired so I stopped for the night. I want to re-reel equal amounts onto two tubes so that I can more easily double the thread later, but it's going to be a guessing game as to when to stop with one tube and start the next. I just hope that when I continue re-reeling tomorrow that I don't find my silk stuck to the bobbin.

Next thing I have to do is double the thread, and I need either a drop spindle or a spinning wheel to make this happen. I have no experience with either, so I need to find one or the other and hope I don't screw it up!

I reeled!

2009-10-25T17:35:00.002-04:00

Today I reeled silk for the first time. I took some photos and video that I'll be posting as soon as I can, but I think it was a success.

I reeled 40 Bombyx mori cocoons. It was pretty easy once I got the hang of incorporating new filaments into the main thread when a cocoon ran out of silk or when a filament broke. That was the only tricky part, besides figuring out the setup.

Pics and videos to come!

When one door closes...

2009-05-13T08:19:00.002-04:00

I was very bummed about the failure of my A. pernyi colony. However, I got a nice surprise on Sunday when I realized that I have a mulberry tree in my yard that I didn't know about. There is an area in our side yard that we hadn't trimmed in about five years. Sunday I was doing yard work and I discovered this little tree. I'm sure that the people who owned the house before us had been cutting it down, but since mulberry trees grow like weeds it has come back to life. It only has one trunk, and it's still a very immature tree with the trunk being about 3 inches in diameter, but it's leafing nicely and looks very healthy. I think it's about 6 feet tall.

Since it's in the middle of a bunch of other trees I'm going to trim all the other trees back so that my little mulberry can get more sun and have more room to grow. It's also very close to our neighbor's property, and he's very good about trimming his trees so I have to tell him not to touch the mulberry even if it hang over into his yard. I need all the leaves I can get from it.

I hope it fruits!

It's over

2009-05-04T12:58:00.004-04:00

I'm been resisting posting this because it's sad for me. Out of 11 cocoons I had five males and six females which resulted in no matings. I have one lonely female left alive, and she is just hanging around waiting to die. Somehow the death of the moth is not as sad if they have mated because then it seems like they have fulfilled their purpose in life.

Before most of the moths died I contacted a moth expert from Canada and he made several very good suggestions. I even tried hand-pairing the moths, which is where you hold the moth's butts together and sort of force the issue if they are reluctant. That didn't even work. When none of the suggestions worked he concluded that my moths were probably too closely related to mate. Many species has a built in mechanism that prevents them from mating with siblings or even close cousins. It's good for the gene pool, but not for a small breeder. The B. mori don't have a problem inbreeding, but inbreeding can cause other issues like sudden death of the worms or disease.

So, my project has totally stalled out. For the next few months I will be unable to raise A. pernyi, but I can raise some B. mori. In a few weeks I will order 200 eggs or so and give those another try. I had no issues with raising them last time, so I anticipate much better success. I will try and get more A. pernyi later this summer and try to raise a late summer generation.

Critical time

2009-04-22T08:21:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I had four males and four females, one newly emerged. Three of the males died, and the one female who had just emerged had a problem getting out of her pupal case. I tried to help by pulling off the pupal case, but I tore her abdomen and she started to leak hemolymph. She wasn't going to survive so I killed her quickly. Next time I'll know that I need to be much more gentle.

I still have had no couplings. I had heard that sometimes in enclosed spaces the males are so bombarded with female signal that they can't find her to mate. In these cases they either need to be put in a larger space to mate, which I can't do, or be hand paired. I found a youtube video about hand pairing moths, so I went and tried it with the remaining male and the three females. I could not get the male to couple with any of the females. I picked up one of the dead males and examined his reproductive parts. They looked different than the living male, so I looked at all of the other dead males, and they looked different than the living male too.

Right now I have some theories as to why I've yet to get a breeding pair to couple. First, the three dead males couldn't couple with the females because of the confined space. Then they died. Second, the living male has abnormal reproductive parts, or something, that is preventing him from coupling. It looked like he wanted to mate with the females (I tried them all with him) but he just could not get it done. I spent over an hour trying, so I was very patient but nothing happened.

So I'm kind of in trouble here with my moths. I just need one male and I'm in business. I have four cocoons left that have not emerged. If I get a male I'll try hand pairing again. I hope that one of the females lives long enough to get fertilized. If not I will have to start all over again with trying to import cocoons.

Boys... not so smart

2009-04-19T19:32:00.002-04:00

So I now have three boys and a girl. None of them has been able to mate with the female.

I don't know what's going on, but I get the feeling that the boys are kinda dumb. The female sits still and even bends her abdomen towards them as they crawl on her, but none of them has been able to "seal the deal".

The clock is ticking. They better figure it out!

Hello, lady.

2009-04-17T19:22:00.004-04:00

We have a pair!

This evening I had a female moth eclose. I was able to take a video of it, but I have to warn you that I let my two girls watch so they provided commentary during the process. They also kept bumping my arm that was holding the camera, so it's a bit shaky at times.

After her wings expand I will pair her with one of the males in a paper bag and wait for eggs. As far as worm food goes, my oak buds are getting bigger and greener each day, but I don't have real leaves. I'm trying not to panic about it just yet.

We have moths!

2009-04-16T22:07:00.005-04:00

One moth emerged from his cocoon yesterday, and one today. They are both boys, so lets get going ladies! I took a photo but haven't downloaded it yet. However, both moths look normal.

Now I just need my oak branches to get leaves. The buds are making progress, so I'm hoping to have tiny leaves in time for my tiny worms.

Damage control

2009-04-11T21:06:00.002-04:00

I consulted with the silkworm rearers mailing list regarding my problem with the moldy cocoon. I got a lot of very good information and suggestions, and so have taken the following actions -

It's likely that 52 degrees F is too warm for A. pernyi to remain in diapause, so my pupae might develop and attempt to emerge from the cocoons. It's too late to put them at a colder temperature because if they've developed this might kill them. My best bet is to get them warmed up again and take them out of diapause, so I have all the cocoons in a warm room and separated by colony.

It's most likely that the moldy cocoon resulted from the dead moth inside, so for some reason the moth developed and then died. It's good to know what caused what - as in the death casued the mold and not the other way around.

Since there are no leaves on any trees, I'm attempting to force some oak branches to develop leaves sooner than they would normally. To do this I've cut some branches with buds on them and put them in the warm room in the bucket of water. I did this a few years ago and was able to get a few tiny leaves, which would be enough for me if I get a moth pairing and eggs before the trees outside fully leaf out for the spring.

If I can't force any leaves from my cut oak branches, some good folks from the list who live in southern states have offered to ship me fresh oak leaves. They say they have plenty of leaves down there now. I think this is fantastic, and really very nice of them. I hope I don't have to ask them to do it for me, but if I get desperate I might have to get some oak leaves Fed-Ex'ed to me.

Yeah, we bug people are kinda weird like that.

Anyway, I have five cocoons from colony B and six from colony C. There was one cocoon from colony C that had a dark end, so I snipped it off to see what it looked like inside. I saw what appeared to be a perfectly normal pupa butt. I poked at it a little but could not tell if it was moving or not. I decided to leave it alone and see what happens.

Worse case scenario - I won't have any moths or any pairings. Then it's back to trying to find a supplier.

Next time I'll know - 52 degrees is too warm for diapause!

Bad luck already

2009-04-09T20:06:00.005-04:00

I haven't even taken my cocoons out of diapause, and I've already lost one.

I'd been keeping my cocoons in a wine cooler fridge at 52 degrees F, in narrow mouthed containers. The mouths of the containers are stuffed with batting that I'd wet every so often with water to keep a little bit of humidity in the containers. I was afriad that the fan on the cooler would dry them out, and I was also afraid to put them in an airtight container (even though I've heard of folks doing that).

Today when I checked on the cocoons I found one that was moldy. There was more condensation int he container than I would have liked, which can only mean that I wet the batting too much last time. I dried the rest of the cocoons and shook the extra water from the container.

Then I cut open the cocoon to see how the pupa was. Unfortunately, it was dead. It looked like a moth, so for some reason it had come out of its pupal case. This is not really a good sign, and now I'm worried that some of the others have come out of their pupal cases as well. I'm not sure why they would do this, since they shouldn't be developing at all at this temperature. However, the rest of the cocoons look fine, and when I shake then I can hear them rattling inside their cocoons. This leads me to believe that they are still inside the pupal cases like they should be, but I don't know for sure and I don't want to cut open the cocoons to find out. I guess I'll just have to wait.

Also, I'm wondering if the moth got moldy and then died, or died and then got moldy. So which came first, the mold or the death?

In any case, I feel like I need to get those cocoons out soon, but we don't have leaves on the trees here yet. Come on trees! Lets get going!

Cleaning up

2008-11-10T17:12:00.003-05:00

I have to admit, I was really relieved when I was done feeding all those bugs. It was a lot of work! So when the last worm had spun I never cleaned up my insectary, or did anything with the cocoons other than put the selected few for next year in the chiller, and shove the others in the freezer. Today was the day that I finally cleaned everything up and started to prepare the cocoons for use.

First I took the cocoons out the the freezer and put them in the oven at 170 degrees for one hour. It ended up being over and hour because I didn't hear the timer. Oops. It doesn't look like the cocoons are damaged at all, so no worries. My goal here is to dry the pupae inside the cocoon so that the silk won't mold or smell bad. The cocoons have a definate smell, and I wish I could describe it. It's kind of musty and a little sweet at the same time. It's not really gross, but I'm not sure if I'd call it pleasant either. But if the pupae rots on the inside of the cocoon I'm sure it would smell much worse, so dried they will be.

The cocoons that I'm saving for next year went into my wine chiller set at 52 degrees. Since A. pernyi is a tropical species they could possibly end up sterile if they get too cold overwintering in the fridge. So I have this wine chiller that I can set at 52 degrees which should induce diapause and keep them safe until next spring. I didn't want to seal them in a container, but I also wanted to keep them from drying out, so I put them in plastic jars with cotton stuffed in the top. I've been keeping the cotton damp so that there is some humidity but hopefully not enough to mold the cocoons.

The next order of business was to pull everything out of the insectary and give it a thorough cleaning. All the equipment had to be bleached and set out to dry. It will be nice to have everything ready to go in the spring when I pull the cocoons out of the chiller.

While I wait out the long winter I will be reading books and getting more documentation on wild silkmoths if I can find any. I will also be attempting to reel some silk for the first time on my own. I took one class on it, but wasn't very successful. I now have much better information on how reeling should be accomplished, so I'll give it a try at some point over this winter.

Winding down

2008-10-14T19:02:00.003-04:00

Things are coming to an end with my bug colonies. Colony A is all finished, and the return was pretty poor. I got eleven cocoons, and most of them are pretty poor quality. The walls of the cocoons are thin, so there is not much silk in them.

Notice that at the bottom of the picture there are pupae that did not spin cocoons. These bugs went through pupation without spinning. I got some of these in every colony. I also got some really neat pictures of the worms pupating outside of a cocoon.

To begin pupation,the worm gets short and fat and just lays on it's side, not eating or crawling. If poked they will do a little wiggle with their bottoms.

A few days later they will wiggle fiercely to get out of the worm skin. If they are in the cocoon this sounds very much like some animal caught in a paper bag trying to scratch it's way out. Right after the skin is shed the pupa looks very green and is soft. If you look closely at the head (the most green part) you can see the antennae and the wings closed around the body.

It only takes a few hours for the pupa to start turning brown and hardening on the outside. Here is a picture of the skin on the bottom, a green pupa in the middle, and a browned pupa on the top.

Like Colony A, Colony B is also finished and has no worms left. I got more cocoons out of it but not as many as I'd hoped. Seventeen complete cocoons and one cocoon that looks like a bowl. The worm in that one didn't complete the cocoon. The green worms on the bottom are not going to spin, and will just pupate with no cocoons.

Colony C, however, still has worms spinning. There are only about five worms left and at least one of them is fixing to spin right now. The was my best colony, and has gotten me 62 cocoons so far. Most are of a nice quality too.

I saved five cocoons from Colony B, and seven from Colony C. I kept each colony separate and put each in a wide mouthed container and stuffed the opening with cotton batting. I need to make sure that they get air, but don't dry out. Then I put the container in my cooling chamber at 52 degrees. That should be cool enough to activate diapause (overwintering) but not cold enough to make them sterile.

The rest of the cocoons and pupae went into the freezer. I'll just throw the pupae with no cocoons away, but the cocoons I'll take out at a later date and dry them.

I'm certain that the early disease had a large impact on the quality and number of cocoons that I got from each colony. Colony A was hardest hit and I got the most death and least cocoons from it. Colony C was the least effected, and it shows. Next time I will not try and raise that many worms at once. I'll start with one or two hundred eggs at the most. That should make it easier not to overcrowd them. It will also make it easier for me to get enough food for them. There were days where the back of my car was stuffed with large leafy branches that had to be put in buckets of water so they would stay fresh over night for the morning feeding. I'm really glad that's over!

Oh deer! We're spinning.

2008-09-23T19:44:00.005-04:00

I've been meaning to write about this for awhile, but I just haven't had the chance. Here is a picture of my weeping mulberry.

A few weeks ago it was beautiful, completely leafed and full. Then one night the deer came by our yard and almost stripped it. I'm very glad that I didn't have any B. mori that I had to feed, or I'd have been in trouble, Next year I'm going to get netting on it early to protect the buds from the squirrels, and then I'll leave it on to keep the deer off of the leaves. Honestly, they could have eaten ANY of the other crappy shrubs that we have in our yard. Why pick on my mulberry!!??

In bug news, this morning I saw that I had two spinners. They had just started the beginnings of the cocoons, and by this evening they had completely enclosed themselves in silk.

I have one spinner each in colony A and B, and I think I have one starting in Colony C. I think I may have figured out a spinning structure for them. I took short sections of used oak twigs and tied them together in the middle to form bundles of twigs. I'm hoping the silkworms will crawl upwards out of the leaves to spin in the twigs. It would be much easier to raise these outside!

Something that I haven't mentioned is that the worms seem to prefer leaves from certain trees. I'm not great with identifying oak trees, but I'm pretty sure that the oak leaves I collect out at the farm are pin oaks. The worms will eat the pin oak, but they seem to far prefer the leaves from our church's oak tree out back, and the oak leaves from our neighbor's oak tree which I think are the same species. Compared to the pin oak the leaves are a much darker green and the leaves are not as skinny and spiky as pin oak leaves. I'll have to see if I can figure out what species the preferred trees are, because I think it's interesting that they have favorites within a species.

The Infirmary

2008-09-18T22:00:00.002-04:00

My worms are eating like crazy, and getting really big.

I still have fatalities in all Colonies, but they are mostly in Colony A. They seem to be bugs that haven't been through the final molt and are not showing signs of ever getting there. They are small and don't evacuate their bowels or vomit before they die. They just get stiff and die. It's nice that they don't spew bodily fluids or liquefy, because that tells me that it's probably not a nasty virus or bacterium. However, since I'm getting mostly deaths in Colony A and that's the colony that had the illness, I'm assuming the worms that survived were affected in some way. Most of them are doing just fine, so all I can do at this point is feed them well and keep them clean.

The deaths that I've had in the other two colonies seem to be worms that haven't molted completely, or are having issues molting. You can see on both of these guys the flaky skin and yellowish color. The looked bad enough that I pulled them out into The Infirmary to get them away from the other bugs in case they died.

Compare them to this nice healthy worm, whose skin is smooth and a nice green color.

The Infirmary is just another container that I have set up to put the sick looking bugs in. I put the sick worms on a paper towel just in case they evacuate their bowels or vomit before they die. Most of them seem to die, but at least they do it away from everyone else. I've had five or six that seem to recover and I've been able to put them back with the others when I'm sure they are doing well.

Right now I've got some interesting worms in The Infirmary. This one seems to have a rectal prolapse. I had one other worm do this and the next day it was just fine, so we'll see what happens to this little guy.

This one has a black foot. He seems to be eating and getting around okay, but I want to keep him segregated. I need to take some time and look up what this illness might be.

This poor worm has a rectal prolapse and a black foot! He's a big fella too.

Should be one more week until I get spinners! I can't wait!

Picture Day

2008-09-06T20:56:00.007-04:00

I took some time today to get some nice shots of the molting worms. All three colonies are in molt right now, and the large size of the worm makes it easier to get good photos. The younger worms look very similar to these as they are molting, except the color of the heads don't change as dramatically as the older worms do.

This worm is not ready to molt yet. Notice that the head looks dark and small compared to the body.

This worm has just molted, and the head is much bigger than in the last photo. The white head and face will darken over time. If you look closely you can just see very faint dots where the characteristic face freckles will show up when they darken. Also you can't really tell from this angle but the skin is very loose and baggy, giving the worm room to grow.

Here is a worm that has molted and enough time has passed that the head has darkened and the cute face freckles can be seen.

This shot shows the typical "prayer stance" that the worms adopt before they molt. The head is tucked down and the front legs are held up and together. If you look at the head you will see a cream-colored area right behind the face. This is the back part of the head peeking out because it is now too large for the head capsule. The worm will have to pop that head capsule off in order to molt and also to be able to eat again. When the head gets too big for the head capsule the mouthparts stop working, and so the molt begins.

Here is a shot of another worm waiting to molt. Worms that aren't molting will also take the prayer stance if they are disturbed.

Here are a line of worms waiting to molt.

Close up of two pre-molters.

Some worms spin short silk anchor threads before they molt. This helps them stay in place as they try to wiggle out of the old skin. It's best not to break these threads because an incompletely shed skin can cause major problems down the road for the worm. You can see the old skin hanging off the back of this worm.

This is a nice shot of the dark jagged mandibles of the worm. This worm has just molted so it's head is nice and light, creating a good contrast with the dark jaws.

Count update

2008-09-05T12:12:00.000-04:00

Last night I counted colony B. Out of 273 eggs I have 194 worms. That makes a total of 553 worms from 800 eggs, which is 69%. I lose maybe one worm every other day, but they aren't sick. The dead ones that I find always seem to have had some sort of growth or molting issue. They are small and far behind the others in the colony, or have old shed skins stuck to them that they can't seem to get rid of.

Overall I'm really happy with how they look right now. They are fat, green, and very happy. Since the rearing containers have very good ventilation and I'm cleaning the containers and the room carefully and vigilantly, I seem to have eliminated the sickness issues.

I am concerned about what I'm going to do when they start to spin. When B. mori are ready to spin they turn kind of a translucent color and get sort of bloated and sluggish, so it was easy to watch the colony and separate the spinners from the eaters. These A. pernyi don't seem to change much in appearance. With my last batch the only reason I was able to tell which ones were going to spin is because I could tell that they had done a "gut dump". This is exactly how it sounds - the worm evacuates it's bowels before it spins so that it doesn't have to poop inside the cocoon. Makes sense, huh?

Anyway, it's important not to disturb the spinning worms. They can take a few days to complete the cocoon and if disturbed during the process they can stop spinning and never resume. They will still pupate and develop, just without spinning a complete cocoon. Since I'm after the silk I really don't want incomplete cocoons. Once some of the worms start to spin in one colony I'm going to have to figure out how I can clean the container without bothering the spinners. With my last few worms it was easy to separate them. This time it's going to be impossible.

If I can't clean as thoroughly as I'd like I'll need to lower the temperature and increase the airflow to try and lower my chances for disease. That's the best plan I have so far. I guess I'll have to just see how it goes. In ancient China these worms were raised outside on trees. I can see how that would be much easier to deal with. All the poop just falls to the ground, they find their own food, and they can spin in the leaves when they are ready. Of course they would also have to hope birds don't come by and have a snack. I'm sure those nice fat green worms would make a nice meal.

I must have been crazy...

2008-09-02T21:39:00.004-04:00

.. to think that I could take care of this many bugs. They are eating like cows! Here is a picture of what they eat in a 24 hour period.

The bad news is that bringing all those oak leaves and branches into my house means that I'm also bringing in all sort of other little critters. There are assorted spiders, mites, other caterpillars, and the occasional juvenile praying mantis. I've been trying to catch them all and let them go, but the spiders mostly get away from me. Anything little that crawls off into the insectary seems to get getting caught by the spiders who have set up shop in the corners of the room. I'll have to do a thorough cleaning once all the spinning is completed.

The good news is that I have the sickness under control and have not had any more deaths. Colony A is beginning the last molt, and then the eating should bump up another notch. It's going to be a very busy next three weeks.

I did a bug count of colonies A and C tonight, and here how the numbers worked out -

Colony A - 259 eggs, 169 worms (43 died from the illness)
Colony C - 268 eggs, 190 worms.

I'll do a count on colony B tomorrow or the next day. Assuming the numbers are close I should have 500+ worms.

Man, that really makes me sound nuts. I will never again raise this many bugs at once. It's just too much!

On the upswing

2008-08-28T11:54:00.001-04:00

Yay! No dead bugs this morning! They are all fat, happy and eating like pigs. I think having more space agrees with them.

Out of the woods?

2008-08-27T21:08:00.005-04:00

The death toll is now at 43. However I think it's slowing down, since there were only 2 dead worms this evening compared to the ten I disposed of this morning. Between feeding, cleaning, and disinfecting I've been spending a lot of time in my bug room. It's now a very crowded room because I have Colony A split between three containers, and Colonies B and C split into two. I never thought I would have this many bugs, and also never suspected that the room would be too small. As it is I still have enough room, but it's getting pretty tight in there.

But the bugs seem happy and are staying alive, so I think we're on the upswing.

In other news, I've found two other species of caterpillars that I let go in my back yard, in addition to three praying mantids. The mantids are very young nymphs that hitched a ride on the oak leaves and they are adorable. I haven't had a chance to identify the caterpillars. In any case, they are all hopefully doing well outside. I didn't keep the mantids for fear that they wouldn't get enough to eat, even though I saw small leafhoppers and some spiders in with my oak leaves. Had my worms been smaller I'd have worried that they'd eat the worms, but the worms are at least 20 times bigger than the mantids that I found so I wasn't worried. I might have to raise some of them on down the road because they are so damn cool.

Damage control

2008-08-26T09:10:00.004-04:00

Last night I went through and divided Colony A into three groups, because I found five more dead worms. The three groups are -

- actively eating/healthy looking
- molting, stationary, and questionable health
- probably ill

I put the healthy ones in a new big container that has lots of airflow. This morning it looks like most of the molting and sick worms are okay. In fact some from both groups had molted and were eating just fine. However, I found four more dead worms in the healthy group. They looked like they had just died and weren't spewing liquid, so I hope I got them out in time.

I'll have two more big airy containers by the end of this evening so I can split my other two colonies. I need to cut down the crowding and increase the airflow on all my colonies or I'm going to run into the same issues.

So far, the death toll stands at 21.

Alarmed

2008-08-25T12:01:00.003-04:00

Colony A is at the tail end of their third molting. I try to leave them alone when they are molting but the rearing container started to feel a little humid to me so I decided to clean it out. I was careful not to disturb the worms too much, but I had to take them out of the container to empty all the frass from it. All but a few of the worms were attached to branches so I didn't have to handle them much. I thought I was in good shape.

However, this morning I had to clear out six dead worms. This is the first time I've had dead worms that didn't look like they were really behind developmentally. three of them looked like they had some sort of molting issue - one had the old skin still on it's rear and, and two of the others looked like the old skin had formed a band around the body, like a really tight belt, kind of squishing the worm. The other three just looked stiff and dead. No nasty fluids, although they were a little brownish. I hope they don't have some sort of virus.

Colonies B and C are at the beginning of their third molt. So far I haven't lost any of those. I know I still have plenty of worms left, but I also know that if I'm not careful it would be easy for a nasty disease to wipe out one or all of my colonies. I'm hoping my hubby and I can finish the ventilated containers that I'm working on. I think that will help with air circulation and hopefully decrease my chances for disease.

Biting off more than I can chew

2008-08-20T18:59:00.003-04:00

My A. pernyi colonies are doing very well. Colony A has had their second molting, and colonies B and C are just about done with theirs. I've been feeding them twice a day and they have been eating tons of leaves. This morning I underestimated the amount of leaves that I'd need for Colony A, and when I came home this is what the rearing container looked like -

Colony B and C are a few days younger and some are still molting so they aren't eating quite as much. I'm starting to get a little concerned that I'm not going to be able to keep up with this many bugs!

I'm in the process of building three new, larger rearing containers with screens in the top and sides. Humidity is going to become a problem but I'm hoping that increased ventilation and good cleaning will help reduce my chances of disease. There are so many bugs and their space is going to get tight as they get bigger, so sickness could possibly give me a colony wipe. Sure, I have two other colonies, but I really don't want any of my worms to die off.

Actually, I now have four colonies. Yesterday while I was collecting oak leaves I saw that some of the leaves had what I thought was a wild caterpillar on them. Of course I had to take them home and put them in a rearing container. Here is what they look like.

They are really shiny and almost look slimy. Unlike my cutie silkworms I really don't want to touch these things. Their font legs look very long, spiky, and spider-like. I posted a pic of them on the Silkworm Yahoo group list and a member posted almost immediately that these are sawfly larvae. Yuck. So I won't be getting a nice moth or butterfly out of them. Needless to say, they are going in the freezer tonight.

As far as my A. pernyi colonies go, at this same temperature my last batch of bugs took seven weeks to start spinning. Right now I'm on week two. It's going to be an interesting next five weeks. I hope my supply of oak leaves doesn't dry up!

The first molt

2008-08-14T13:25:00.002-04:00

It turns out that the first batch of silkworms (Brood A) hatched out on August 7th. They began their first molt on August 12th. I took some pictures but they are hard to see because my camera isn't good at taking pictures of such small objects.

The first picture shows a good shot of a green molted worm next to a black unmolted one.

The second shot shows a newly molted worm and the black skin that it wiggled out of.

The last shot is just a bunch of worms.

Broods B and C hatched on August 9th and molted today. A few days ago they slowed down their eating and many of them had adopted the "prayer" stance where they rise up the front half of their bodies. This is typical when they are about to molt. However this species tends to be a bit shy and will sit in prayer stance when I open the lid of the rearing container. Hopefully I can get a decent shot of that when the worms get a bit bigger.

The scary kind of success

2008-08-10T17:58:00.005-04:00

When I got back from Pennsic yesterday I found that my eggs had hatched. Apparently the few days at 60 degrees didn't harm them at all and also had the slowing effect that I wanted. It looked like they had just hatched that morning, so putting them at 60 degrees for four days had slowed them down for exactly four days.

My plan is to feed this batch all oak leaves, and then select cocoons to overwinter from each of the three pairings. I'm not sure how many I'll keep from each pairing - maybe six.

I'm a little concerned that I'll be able to keep up with so many worms. They are only a day old and they are already eating like fiends. They are wandering a bit so I keep picking them off the tops of the containers and putting them back on the leaves. The A group seemed to have hatched first and they are the most settled down on the food, after three or four times of getting moved back to the leaves.

I think I'm going to be busy. Yikes!

Off to War

2008-08-03T20:59:00.003-04:00

I'm leaving for Pennsic tomorrow, and my eggs are all still at 60 degrees. I've decided to take them out tomorrow morning before I leave for work. I'm not going to heat my insectary up to 80 degrees yet. I'm just going to leave it at ambient temperature of about 70 degrees. Hopefully this will slow them down a little too and they won't hatch until I get back.

Just in case I do get some hatching I'm going to put leaves in with the eggs. I'm going to put the branches in test tubes with water in them so that the leaves will stay fresh and won't dry out. I'll have someone come in and check to see that the tubes still have water in them, so I think that should cover all the bases. I'm still planning on keeping the pairings separate.

Hopefully when I get back I'll have eggs that will hatch in short order.

Cooling it

2008-07-31T22:30:00.003-04:00

Things are moving right along with my silkworm breeding.

Right now I have 800 eggs from three pairings. My goal is to keep them separate so when I choose my cocoons to overwinter I can choose five or six from each brood. That way I can control inbreeding to some degree. I can't eliminate it, but I can try and minimize it as best I can.

Yesterday I removed the males and females from the paper bags and put them in a container. When I opened the first bag a lot of wing scales came billowing out, so I quickly closed the bag and got the vacuum cleaner. I turned it on and kept the nozzle very close to but not in the bag so that I could open the bag and not have scales floating all over in the air. The wing scales from some moths are very irritating to the lungs, and I don't need to have breathing issues because of this project.

I made sure to keep the moths that had already bred separate from the ones that have emerged but not bred, just in case I get any more emerging. The moths are all pretty beaten up from trying to fly around in the bags and containers. This is the best looking one and big hunks of wing are missing.

After I moved the moths I cut the paper bags up so that the clumps of eggs were on small sheets of paper. Then I arranged the paper strips in the bottom of petri dishes, labeling the broods A, B, and C. I had read that you should mist the eggs every third day, so I misted them yesterday.

However, I have a problem. The eggs are due to hatch while I'm at Pennsic. I have a theory that I should be able to cool the eggs to slow down their development so that they don't hatch until I get back. At the current temperature of 80 degrees in my insectary the last batch of eggs hatched in ten days. That would put these eggs hatching on August 5th. I leave on the 4th and get back on the 9th. I need these eggs to stay eggs for five more days.

When I heard that the cocoons should not overwinter in the fridge, I went searching for a small used fridge that I could just turn up high and get it around 55 degrees. But when I was searching online I found that they make small, inexpensive wine chillers that have a digital temperature controls that you can set between 65 and 40 degrees. The bad thing about these is they don't get colder than 20 degrees below the room temp. This is not an issue for me since I don't want it much colder than that. I was able to find a small chiller on sale for $60 so I grabbed it for overwintering cocoons. However, I'll be using it much sooner than that. As in right now!

I called the USDA entomologist to confirm that I could accomplish delaying egg hatching by cooling the eggs. He agreed that it would work, and said 60 degrees should do it. So right now my eggs are in petri dishes in the chiller at 60 degrees. I think I'm going to modify the shelves so I can put the dishes on the shelf and put a pan of water on the floor of the unit. There is a fan in the chiller and I'm afraid that the eggs will dry out if I don't keep the humidity up.

I'm trying to decide what to do from here. I just need them to be delayed five days. So, do I leave them in the chiller until I get back, or leave them in for another five days and then take them out before I leave and risk them hatching while I'm gone?

I'll probably take them out before I go and leave them some branches to eat if they hatch. I'm really hoping they don't hatch until I get back. Silly worms, you have bad timing! At least they are in a stage that I can control. If they had all hatched last week I'd be in a pickle since I can't take them to Pennsic and I can't leave them alone for five days.

So far no other moths have emerged, including my two from the first generation this spring. If I have no more moths tomorrow I'm going to stick them in the freezer. I can't have them emerging with nobody to take care of them. However, I really don't think I need any more eggs. 800 will be plenty!

Moths everywhere

2008-07-27T11:30:00.003-04:00

I've been a bit busy lately, so I've not had the time to post about all the moths that have emerged. I had two males emerge the day after the females, and both had paired by the next morning. I left them alone for 24 hours then transferred each pair into a separate brown paper bag. One pair stayed coupled while the other came apart. That was last night. This morning the coupled pair was still together, while the others were apart and the female had laid eggs.

Also last night I had two more males and another female emerge. This morning she had paired with one of the males. All of the emerged moths have been from the imported UK shipment. My two cocoons haven't done anything yet. I suspect they are males due to the size, but I'll just have to wait and see. I'll take more pictures when I get a chance.

I feel optimistic with so many pairs right now. This could be the turning point for this little project. Now I just need eggs to hatch and everything will be a go!

Two ladies

2008-07-24T23:31:00.003-04:00

Before I went to bed tonight I checked on my bugs and found these two lovely ladies waiting for me.

Now they just need a date or two. Come on gentlemen! Lets go!

The UK bugs have arrived

2008-07-22T21:50:00.003-04:00

Today I got my shipment of ten cocoons from the UK. I'm a little concerned that they are actually A. pernyi because the cocoons seem so much smaller than the last ones I got that were imported from China (via the UK also). These were raised in the UK so maybe something about their environment effected the size of the cocoons.

To avoid the same issue with the moths emerging and then flopping around on the floor of the emerging chamber in their meconium, I strung up the cocoons on a string inside the chamber. In medieval times they would string B. mori up like this to emerge and I have done that many times, so I hope this will work for A. pernyi too. Ideally you're supposed to hang them head facing up, but I couldn't tell which end was which so I strung them horizontally instead of vertically. I figure this would be better than hanging them upside down. They'll still be able to crawl out of the cocoon and rest on it as their wings expand.

Here they are in the chamber. The two on the far left are the two of mine that spun. The third and last worm died on Saturday. I just think he was too far behind.

While I was stringing them up one of them started to vibrate violently in my hand. It startled me, but gives me hope. It feels like one robust critter in there!

Spinner #2

2008-07-07T23:41:00.003-04:00

My second worm began spinning late last night. I did a 10 pm check and saw that she (I hope it's a she) had dumped her gut so I knew she was going to spin. I put her in a separate container so she could spin in a smaller space. This morning I see that there is the makings of a cocoon.

Two down and one to go. I hope the last one actually makes it to spin, but it's kind of far behind in it's development. We'll just have to see I guess.

Still no bugs from the UK yet. I hope to get word that he is sending them soon!

Spinner!

2008-06-29T09:48:00.005-04:00

My largest worm has begun to spin. Here is how he (or she) looks next to the smallest worm.

And here is a short movie of the big one munching away a few days ago.

Finally, here is the video of how I found the spinning worm last night. He had just dumped his gut and was beginning to spin. I decided to move him to another container in a paper towel roll even though I was afraid that if I disturbed him he might stop spinning. However this morning he's spinning inside the tube so I think I'm okay.

Hopefully the other two will start in a few days, even though I really think the little one needs some more time to grow before he spins.

I'm anxious to get my new batch of cocoons. The guy sending them said he might be able to send ten instead of just seven, which would be awesome! I'm still waiting to hear form him though.

New additions on the way

2008-06-27T14:09:00.003-04:00

My worms are getting quite big now, but nobody is looking like they want to spin yet. I was starting to think that this project was never going to get off the ground, since I only had three worms (one is not looking that great at the moment), all of them from the same female. However, I was lucky enough to find seven A. pernyi cocoons on eBay, and I won the auction. I consulted with USDA and found that my permit would allow me to import another ten cocoons. Yay!

The seller of the cocoons said that he collected the parental generation in the wild, so the genetic diversity should be great (the USDA entomologist confirmed that my problems were likely due to excessive inbreeding). He also said that he might be able to sell me ten cocoons, and that he expects the cocoons to go into diapause. I found this odd because this moth should have two generations a year. When I spoke to the UDSA entomologist he agreed, and suggested that when I get the cocoons I should keep them at 55 degrees for two weeks. This will induce diapause for certain, and then I can break the diapause by bringing them back out into the 80 degree insectary.

I now also have concerns that the cocoons from brood #1 were not handled properly. The USDA entomologist also said that refrigerator temperatures (usually around 40 degrees F) are too cold for this species, because they are subtropical. The seller of the first cocoons told me that he had them in the fridge prior to shipping them to me, and told me that I could put them back in the fridge until I needed them. Which I did. Well, that could be part of the problem right there.

I'm trying to decide if I want to try and breed the worms that I have now, or if I just want to go with the new ones. I feel like I don't want to waste the old ones, but with all the problems that I've had with brood #1 I might just want to start fresh and go with the new ones. Although my issues might have been from the temperature issue and not inbreeding. I'll never know for sure.

Either way, this project just might be in business again.

And then there were three

2008-06-13T20:51:00.004-04:00

On June 5th I noticed that the smallest worm had a very dark face. Usually their faces are tan with cute little brown freckles. This little guys face was almost black, so I decided that I'd isolate him in a small container. The next day, he was dead in a small puddle of goo.

I was glad that I isolated him. The other three are still going strong and look great. Nobody looks close to spinning yet. They're really starting to power through the leaves!

The survivors

2008-06-02T19:32:00.002-04:00

Well, I still have four bugs left - one small, two medium, and a large. They all look very healthy and happy. Here, take a look!

Medium

Small

Large!

This is my 3 year-old daughter holding the large worm.

I have to say that these worms seem very shy compared to B. mori. When I walk in the room and take the lid off of my rearing containers they all immediately freeze. The only way I've gotten them to move is to pry them off of the leaves that they're on. And they are tenacious little ones. B. mori are much easier to move around than these are. It took me a long time to carefully pry each little foot of the large worm off of the leaf it was on. I was really afraid that I was going to rip a foot off. Thankfully, I did not.

It's now been 24 days since these worms have hatched. They should still have a bit to go until they spin. I'm thinking at least two more weeks.

Diminishing returns

2008-05-23T14:36:00.003-04:00

Although I started out with ten little worms, I'm now down to four. The ones who have died all seemed to slow in growth, then just die. Thankfully none of them had nasty symptoms of a disease, they just seemed to peeter out and fall over dead. This is possibly the result of them being inbred, which I highly suspect.

The four that I have look good right now, so if I'm lucky I'll have adults. I doubt they'll breed since they are from the same female, and I'm not certain I'd want them to breed anyway. Further inbreeding is not what I need!

I'm thinking about contacting the plant pest supervisor from USDA and asking for advice on how to get this project off the ground. Two years into my three year permit and I'm stalled out.

Poor results

2008-05-13T22:14:00.003-04:00

So far I've only had 10 eggs out of 80 that the beautiful female had laid. Two of those worms died, but the rest seem to be doing okay.

None of the eggs from the needy female have hatched. I'm still waiting as it hasn't been two weeks, but I'm not optimistic.

I really think I need to find a new supplier. These were really substandard animals and it's a lot of work for so little return.

First batch of worms

2008-05-10T12:05:00.004-04:00

I only have a few minutes to update, but I got my first batch of worms hatch out yesterday.

This is a picture of five of them, and they were just hatching at dawn. Eventually ten hatched in all. Today there are still ten so I'm wondering if the others will hatch. These are all from the batch of eggs laid by the beautiful moth on 4/28 who died suddenly. That makes eleven days of incubation.

The needy female Laid her first batch of eggs on 4/30, so I'm guessing those will begin to hatch tomorrow. That female finally expired yesterday.

I ended up bleaching everything for fear of viruses since two of my females died suddenly and looked strange. I'll post the protocol I used here when I get time to type it out. Again I got the info from my silkworm yahoo group.

The end of the eggs

2008-05-05T19:58:00.002-04:00

Last night I held the Needy female and she laid 45 more eggs, bringing her total up to 200. She was starting to look tired when I stopped, and I think she's just about done. The two males have expired, so when she goes I'll be moth free.

I'll miss them, but I'm ready for little black worms to hatch out of my eggs. With any luck I'll have a decent hatch rate.

Tired

2008-05-03T22:18:00.002-04:00

Last night I stayed up very late and held the last female while she laid eggs. I got 67 more eggs from her and then stopped when things slowed down. At that point she'd been laying over a span of 4 days which I don't think is normal. Not to mention the fact that she's not really acting normal either, and I'm not totally sure that she mated at all. All those eggs might be infertile.

She's still alive right now, but I'm just going to leave her alone. I left a branch in her container and she seems very content to just hang on it and do nothing. I also have two males still alive, but they look pretty pathetic. It makes me sad to see them die but there's nothing I can do about that.

Now I'll just wait for the eggs to hatch. It will probably be at least a week before I see the first little black caterpillars.

Maybe I should have pulled an all-nighter...

2008-05-02T08:42:00.004-04:00

After I put the female moth back in the bag I went to my yahoo group for help. Nathan again gave some excellent information. He said that he's had females that need to be active to lay eggs. He's had to hold them by one wing to get them fluttering and laying. That's why picking her up and putting her with the males worked - it got her moving. He also suggested putting some leaves of her host plant in with her because that might stimulate her some.

When I checked this morning, little Miss Hold-me-while-I-lay-eggs decided to lay ten more eggs overnight, and then she stopped. I decided I needed to take action. I put the two remaining males (one of them is the first one with the crumpled wing who was keen on mating everyone) in the bag with her, along with a small branch of oak leaves.

I'm hoping those males chase her around all day and get any last eggs they can out of her. She's been laying little batches now for three days and I'm afraid she doesn't have much time left. As it is I'm going to have the eggs hatching over a span of days instead of all at once, which will make it a bit of a pain to care for them.

I realized that I never updated on one of the females. She bred, laid one egg, and then died shortly thereafter. Her abdomen was bloated and she didn't look well, so it wasn't really a surprise.

So far the egg count from my four females is -

First female with pupal case abnormality - 0
Beautiful female - 80
Bloated, sick female - 1
Needy female - 65

Hopefully there will be more eggs waiting for me this afternoon, because I'm fresh out of females!

Strange behavior

2008-05-01T22:43:00.003-04:00

I asked for advice on my moth breeding on the silkworm rearing yahoo group that I subscribe to. Nathan said that it sounded like my moths may be inbred. He said that sibling moths won't breed each other, so that might explain why only one moth seemed interested in breeding. He also said that inbreeding can cause unexpected death of moths or worms. I'm wondering if inbreeding can also cause the wing deformities that I've seen. It's disappointing.

Since I'd really like second generation of these guys I'm going to keep the eggs from each female separate, then try and choose all males from one and all females form the other. Both my females who laid any eggs (more on that in a minute) might be sisters but at least I can keep full sibling from mating. Or I can try at least.

On eggs news...very late last night I checked the last two females. One had started laying eggs in the paper bag that I put her into. I did a quick count and it was about 15. I thought she was probably on her way so I left her alone. There were still no more eggs this evening, so I thought that I might have gotten my females confused and maybe this lady hadn't actually paired up. I put her back in with the males and she immediately laid two eggs. So I put her back in the paper bag and she stopped laying. I waited a bit and then picked her up. Then she laid two eggs on me in rapid succession.

I quickly put her back in the bag, but she stopped laying. Every time I picked her up she would deposit eggs on me. I don't know what's going on with her. Maybe it's her inbreeding, the warmth of my hand, her body position, or just coincidence. But when she seemed to be on a roll I put her back in the bag, which is where she is now.

I hope she's laying eggs in that bag right now, because I'm not holding her all night so she can lay eggs on me. I'm dedicated to this project, but that sounds a little crazy, even to me.

Possible problems

2008-04-30T19:06:00.005-04:00

I had two more females emerge last night. I got a video of one as it was emerging.

Commentary provided by my four year old daughter, Lily. In case you can't understand her, she said "Lady, don't step in the poop!"

My first female ended up laying about 70 eggs, then decided to recouple with the male. I put her in a bag this morning to lay some eggs, and she was dead this afternoon. I'm sad about that.

One of the other two females was coupled this morning, but was separated this afternoon. I put her in a container and not a bag, and she has laid one egg. I hope she lays some more.

The last female has yet to couple. None of the males seem interested in her, so I put the first male (the one with the crumpled wing who has already mated with the now deceased female) in with her and he's the only male who is all over her.

This project might not be as successful as I once thought.

At last

2008-04-28T22:15:00.003-04:00

I had a female emerge late last night. This morning, her wings were fully expanded, and she was beautiful.

She didn't waste any time finding a suitor. It's the first male with the crumpled wing.

**WARNING!** Graphic bug sex images ahead.

This is a shot of her after I moved them to another container. The male pretty much just fell off. I don't think he'll last long. However, she looks very good. I'm excited!

A decision made

2008-04-27T09:52:00.003-04:00

I just helped a male moth out of his cocoon.

The picture shows how droopy and soft the wings are upon emergence.

I decided to cut the remaining five pupae out of their cocoons. I hadn't wanted to do it, but since it's so important that I get a breeding pair I didn't want any of the possible females to die trying to get out of the cocoon. It's not likely to happen, but it's a possibility and I need to increase my odds if success.

It looks like three females and two males. I just have to wait a little longer for them to cook and then I should be in business.

Unfortunate demise

2008-04-26T21:39:00.002-04:00

I found that the female moth had died this morning when I checked my bugs. None of the male moths were around her, and I could tell from where she was laying that she still hadn't ejected her mecomium or scented at all. This makes me think that she couldn't have been able to breed either. It makes me a little sad.

I had no other moths emerge today, so there are still six possible dates for my three bachelor moths.

Late update

2008-04-25T22:26:00.003-04:00

I have another male moth. I actually watched him emerge from the cocoon. I wish I had the camera so I could have taken a short movie clip, but I didn't bring it down with me. It was really cool. He's completely normal and I put him in the breeding chamber with the other two males and the female. One of the males keeps trying to breed her, but I don't think its going to work. She seems too compromised. So sad.

The soggy moth (#2) ended up being totally normal. Here are some pics of him.

Six cocoons left. Six more chances for a breeding pair. Just one is all I need, but two would be great.

Two new moths

2008-04-25T16:57:00.002-04:00

Today I had two new moths emerge. One is another male and was completely soaked in his meconium. He was laying in a puddle when I found him so I got him up and in the breeding chamber. He seems okay but his abdomen is droopy and squishy. I hope nothing is wrong with him.

However, I know something is wrong with moth #3. It's s female, but I think she had an incomplete pupal case because it looks like her back stuck to the inside of the cocoon. Also her wings are very tiny. I put her in the breeding chamber but I don't know if she'll breed or lay eggs. She seems very out of balance with the small wings and huge distended abdomen.

Early arrival!

2008-04-24T21:48:00.003-04:00

I checked my cocoons and found that I had a moth emerge. It's days before I thought it would happen, and I think it's a male. He didn't have anything to crawl up on, so he was laying on his side which made one of his wings crumpled. I moved him to the breeding chamber and I'm hoping that since he's now hanging on a piece of fabric that his wing will expand. Since I don't know how long he'd been lying there his wing might not ever fully expand.

He's heavier than I remember the moths being from last time. But he's beautiful!

Also here's a shot of some of the meconium that he ejected after emerging. There was a lot more of it but I cleaned it up before I thought to take a shot of it.

Starting the A. pernyi cocoons

2008-04-24T16:06:00.003-04:00

My Chinese Emperor Oak tree has decent sized buds on it, so I took the A. pernyi cocoons out of the fridge last night and put them in my bug room. They are in the emergence chamber, ready to go.

I'm going to keep the room at around 78 degrees, and I got the idea from wild silkmoth guru Bill Oehlke's site to give them 16 hours of daylight. He states that a similar moth, A. polyphemus, will not go into diapause (winter hibernation) in the cocoon state if fourth instar caterpillars (the stage before spinning the cocoon) are exposed to 16 hours of light, but will go into diapause if they are exposed to 12 hours of light. This makes perfect sense, because the shortening days of fall would tell the larva that winter is coming so it would be a good time to shut down for the winter. However, if there's enough light the larva will be able to emerge without a cold snap and will be able to have more than one brood in the summer season. I'm hoping for at least two broods, but I'm getting such a late start because of the weather here in Ohio that I might not be able to squeeze in three.

I'll be checking the cocoons daily (probably more than once a day) for any activity. I'll need to get them out of the emergence chamber and into the breeding chamber as soon as they emerge so I can check for parasitoid wasps. My great emergence chamber should make this easy!

Weeping Mulberry problems

2008-04-21T15:49:00.000-04:00

Last year my mulberry sapling didn't get any leaves, so we dug it out of the ground and bought a more mature weeping mulberry. Since we saved the stump of the sapling in the container that the weeping mulberry came in, I was able to inspect the remains of the sapling. The whole top looked dead, so I snapped the top off, and here is what the trunk looked like on the inside -

Certainly I had insect damage. I broke off a small piece and took it to the tree farm that I bought the sapling from. The man there confirmed that it was wood borer damage, but which kind of beetle he couldn't say. He said it looked like the tree died first and then the beetle ate the wood, and not the other way around. He said I could treat the weeping mulberry tree if I was worried that it might get infested too, and suggested an insecticide that was systemic and would get absorbed into the whole tree. I was all set to buy it when I suddenly remembered what I had the tree for - to FEED BUGS. Luckily I didn't buy anything or treat the tree at all, and I seem to have buds on it.

Unfortunately, the squirrels find these buds delicious! The little buggers have been up in the tree munching on the buds. I chased them out of the tree numerous times just by yelling out the back door, but when that stopped working I had to actually go out to the tree and holler at them. One time the squirrel jumped over to the next tree, and, hanging about three feet away from me at eye level, had the gall to chatter angrily at me!

I asked for helpful suggestions about keeping the squirrels out of my tree on the silkworm rearing Yahoo group that I belong to (Catherders) and some smart soul told me that I could put bird netting on the tree. I netted up the tree and I haven't seen a squirrel in the tree since, but they could just be getting up there when I'm not looking. However, it looks like the buds are getting bigger and not getting eaten, so I'll order some Bombyx mori eggs soon!

Finally an update

2008-04-02T23:14:00.005-04:00

With some help from my hubby, the bug room is almost finished. We painted everything and put the floor in. Now all we need to do is seal up the edges, mop the floor, and move bugs in.

Here are some pics of the room. It's small so I can't take photos inside the room, and if I stand outside you don't get to see much. But you can get the idea. I'm going to set up a table or two for right now, but eventually the plan is to install a counter top for work space and some shelving. I'll get the light on a timer, set up a small oil filled heater, and I'll be in business!

Also, here is the emergence chamber that our buddy Farthegn built for me. It's white on the inside and clear on the top so that I can easily spot and kill any parasitoid wasps that happen to be hitching a ride inside my cocoons. The front has a round opening that I'll put a double tube of panty hose over, which will give me a sleeve to allow me access to the inside of the chamber without opening a large hole through which the wasps or moths can escape. This is something that was a requirement for getting my USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) permit for having wild silkmoths and worms that are not native to the USA.

And, today those wild silkmoth cocoons arrived!

Those are 10 cocoons of Antheraea pernyi, the Chinese Oak Silkmoth. Right now we don't have leaves on the trees and it certainly doesn't look like spring yet around here, so I put the cocoons in the fridge. I'm nervous because I don't know how they were treated before they got here, and I'm hoping that they didn't get too warm and start developing. I really don't need them emerging in their box while they are still in my fridge. Or dying.

I'm going to wait until my oak tree gets some nicely developing buds before I take them out to develop. I hope I get the timing right or I might mess this up. I also hope I can get a breeding pair this time around. I only see one really big one, so I'm hoping I don't get one female and nine males. That would not work well. I'll update again as things progress!

Sad tree

2007-06-07T21:15:00.000-04:00

Yet another setback in my plans to have a silkworm colony this summer. This is a picture of my mulberry sapling that we planted last spring.

If you look at the trees in the background, you'll notice that they all have leaves. My mulberry does not. I confirmed last night that other mulberries in our area not only have leaves but are also ripening fruit at the moment. So something is sorely amiss with my little tree. It appears to be alive, but I can't really be sure. It's not all dry and brittle, so I'm assuming it's not completely dead. Why didn't it leaf? A mystery.

Since we don't have a lot of room in our yard to just keep planting trees, I've decided that I'm going to dig up this sapling and plant an already established weeping mulberry tree (Morus alba 'chaparral').

(Great photo from www.quickmire.com/Garden/garden.html - not my tree!)

The weeping mulberries are non-fruiting, which is kind of a bummer since mulberries can be very tasty. However, the weeping mulberries, well, they "weep" and the branches hang down instead of growing up, which is really convenient when trying to harvest leaves for bugs. Regular fruiting mulberry trees can be 30 feet high or more, making it a chore to reach the high branches for leaves or fruit. We had two weeping mulberries at our old house and it was very easy for me to get plenty of leaves for even my biggest colony of B. mori because the M. alba can get really bushy and still stay short. Another bonus is that the M. alba leaves (also known as white mulberry) are supposed to produce the highest quality silk.

Since I'm not sure if my little mulberry is dead, and I feel bad just throwing it away, I've arranged for a new home for it. A kind soul in the Barony with lots of land has agreed to take it and see if he can save it. He said he's always wanted a fruiting mulberry. I hope it grows for him.

Good thing I'm better at raising bugs than I am at growing trees.

No progress

2007-05-25T19:02:00.000-04:00

We are still working on putting the basement back together after our water problems, so there has been no more progress made on the insectary. The things that need doing are -

Install floor - We bought vinyl flooring to lay down in that room. It will make it easy to clean and disinfect. I need to make sure I keep things as clean as possbile in there, because mold or a virus outbreak can wipe yout your colony.

Paint the walls - Just because the walls need it, not for any functional reason. Also because it will look nice.

Install countertop - This will be nice when I'm cleaning out cages or feeding the bugs.

Make emergance chamber - As noted here, I need an emergence chanber for A. pernyi if I get them shipped in. While I don't think it will be hard to make, it still takes time to make it, and I need help to assemble it (since I've never put together a plexiglass box before).

Get leaves - At this point my mulberry tree still doesn't have leaves. It does have some buds, which is a good sign. I'm thinking I'll have a late summer B. mori brood by the time I have leaves and get this insectary finished!

Construction

2007-05-13T21:44:00.000-04:00

The bug room is mostly complete! Last Saturday I stayed upstairs watching my two daughters while my husband's squire, Farthegn did most of the work. Nickolas offered his help, but Farthegn insisted from the beginning that it was basically a one-man project. I'm not sure if this is because he's very adept at this sort of building, or because he brought over all kinds of tools that made the job easier. Here is just a small assortment of the man-toys that he brought over.

After some careful measuring and planning (that's Farthegn) -

a ceiling anchor was put up so that the wall would be secure when the door was opened and closed. Apparently this was more of a pain then it should have been, because the construction of the drop ceiling was odd and there were no studs where there should have been some. Farthegn was finally able to figure out where to nail the anchor.

After installing the ceiling anchor for the walls, a floor anchor was also installed. This wasn't as easy as just nailing into studs because our basement floor is concrete. So Farthegn brought over these blasting cap-type things that use a small ammunition round to drive a nail deep into the concrete. A You Tube movie will be coming shortly.

Here is the first wall going up and being leveled...

and both walls and the door in place..

then drywall and shimming the door...

and then the door in place.

I decided that I wanted the door to swing inwards from the left side, because there is a window on the right wall of the room and I wanted to make it so I could leave the door open and have light coming through the open door into the basement.

Here is what it looks like, finished with molding, from the outside of the room. And I think it looks fantastic! Thanks Farthegn! Next up - putting in the floor.

The room is not very big, but I wanted to keep it small to make it easier to maintain a constant temperature. Because I always plan to feed my bugs actual leaves and not artificial diet, I'll only be using the room for insect rearing in the late spring/early summer months when there are leaves on the the trees. I'm guessing the temperature down there is going to stay right around 60 degrees, so I won't have to heat it all that much. Ideally I'd like to have it between 75 and 80 degrees. Bugs like this best.

Speaking of leaves, my mulberry tree has no leaves on it right now - only buds. My oak tree just leafed out about a week ago, and with the bug room not ready I have not ordered any insects. So I might have a small colony of B. mori (domesticated silkmoth) later this year, and the A. pernyi (Chinese oak silkmoth) might just have to wait until 2008. B. mori you can usually order any time of year from scientific supply companies, as they are a nice insect for kids to watch and raise in classrooms. They ship as eggs (because B. mori overwinter aka "hibernate" as eggs) usually with instructions on how to incubate them so they hatch within a certain time period. Since these are usually from ongoing colonies the shippers can easily send eggs of a certain age and have a pretty good idea when they'll hatch.

A. pernyi is a different story. My biggest fear with the A. pernyi is that they are being shipped from London, and they ship as pupae because they overwinter as pupae. I'll have no idea what kind of conditions they have been exposed to when they arrive, so I won't know exactly when the moths will emerge. This means that I'll have to have a tree with leaves ready just in case they emerge much sooner than expected. However, I'm hoping the shipper doesn't send them too late and I wind up with emerged moths in my package. That would be no good.

I'm excited about getting going with my bugs again. They are so much fun!

Before the insect room construction

2007-04-07T19:46:00.000-04:00

After a slight basement water problem (go here for the whole story, complete with photos!), we're finally ready to start construction on the insect room. Here is how it looks right now -

It's a relatively small area, but my plan is to put up a wall with a door to make the area into a square. Then I can add a small heater and hopefully keep the temperature constant. A new floor, and nice paint job, and then I'm all set for bugs.

Well, almost. The bugs still need to survive the trip from London. Last time I had one moth emerge from his cocoon during transit. Since he was constricted in the packaging his wings weren't able to expand within the first few hours of emergence, so they never fully opened and he never bred a female. Hopefully I'll have better luck this year.

I also need to construct an emergence chamber for the moths. As per the terms of my permit to import these special Chinese moths, USDA requires that foreign moths emerge in a chamber that will easily contain parasitoid wasps so the wasps can be captured and killed. These wasps hitch a ride with the cocoons and emerge with the moths. Usually these wasps prey on agricultural pests, but if the wasps were to get out into the wild they could possibly prey on beneficial butterflies or other species of moths. So I'll be required to kill any parasitic wasps that I find. I'll take pictures and post them here if I do find any.

More updates as we make progress.

The Beginning

2006-12-30T09:58:00.000-05:00

I love bugs. I think they're really cool. Sure, spiders creep me out a little (but they're technically not bugs). Anyway, just for fun, I did a lot of research into the medieval methods of raising silkworms, and then tried my hand at it. I was able to successfully rear the domesticated silkmoth, Bombyx mori, using medieval methods. My research was published in Tournaments Illuminated, and can be viewed here.

During my research I discovered the widely held belief that the quality of the silk made by the worms was affected by the food that they eat. B. mori eat mulberry leaves and produce a silk that is white, shiny, and very smooth. In contrast, wild tussah moths make a tan silk that is rougher in texture, supposedly due to the tannins in the leaves they eat as they forage in the wild.

It occured to me that at one time B. mori was a wild moth before it's domestication in China in 2000 B.C. I have not found records of how they were domesticated. The entire process of obtaining silk was a closely guarded secret in ancient China, so there may be no written record of their domestication. B. mori must have been chosen for domestication because of the fine silk that it makes. However, evidence exists that the Chinese used other wild silkmoth silk for making garments. One silk used was from the moth Antheraea pernyi, or the chinese oak silkmoth.

Is it possible that the Chinese experimented with domesticating other wild breeds? If so, did they experiment with feeding other species mulberry leaves in an attempt to improve the silk? A. pernyi cocoons are much larger than B. mori, and would yield more silk. This lead me to designing the following experiment - rear colonies of B. mori and A. pernyi and divide each colony into two groups - mulberry leaf diet and oak leaf diet - to compare the silk created by each species with each type of diet.

Due to the fact that A. pernyi are not native to the United States and are considered a pest insect, my first action was to write a research proposal and submit it to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to obtain a permit for the import of A. pernyi cocoons. My research proposal can be read here. I recieved my permit on 10/16/2006.

My next action is to construct an insectary in my basement for the rearing of my worms. I have until May 2007 to get this accomplished, since my cocoons will not be shipped until then. I'll document the progress here. My plan is to have an enclosed room where I can keep the temperature and light/dark cycles as constant as possible.

I'll update again as progress is made. Feel free to contact me at serenasbugs@yahoo.com.