What's in the box...

beneath the lid...


but another box...


covered up like a magician's trick...


to reveal...ta-dah...


another box...of beautiful white cocoons.

I have decided that the pupae are taking to long to emerge, maybe because the air in the airing cupboard is not humid enough. So I have soaked one of Hodmandod Senior's old flannels to act as a humidifier which also effectively keeps out the light.

Cocoon Harvest

Altogether I have 22 cocoons.


The ones in the egg boxes are from the stripy silkworms and I thought, if I get enough female and male moths, I will do a little genetic experiment on them: mate a stripy with another stripy, a stripy with a non-stripy...and so on.

I'm keeping them warm, but I'm wondering if our airing cupboard is perhaps not humid enough for them. I'm also wondering if I should cut away the cocoons from some of them to see how the pupae develop. From what I've read, this does no harm. Ah, the fun never ends!

Cocoons: First Harvest.

Today I 'harvested' my cocoons. It was a little like collecting eggs from hens allowed to roam in a barn, although mine were in a shoe box...


and a little like plucking fruit from a tree, since each cocoon is suspended in place by a web, a 'floss' of silk, which has a slightly different structure from the silk in the cocoon.


I have let them nestle awhile in a silk scarf (which seemed appropriate), and it is interesting to see how different they are: one is significantly smaller than the rest, and one is irregularly-shaped, with a waist, and yet another is not quite opaque. Inside I can see the grub. It rattles around, still white, but clearly dead. I am thinking this one might be a good one to try to unravel, or 'reel'.

The cocoon over four hours.

Here is one cocoon being made at hourly intervals...




































'Has it occurred to you that no one else is going to be as interested in this, as you are?' Hodmandod Minor says.

Teenagers can be so cruel.