colored silkworms

[rm90]

I was randomly surfing the internet and stumbled upon this:

does anyone know how this is done? is it just by putting food coloring in their food?

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.52cpb.cn/index.aspx

edit: sorry for the image size, i copied link from the other site..

 

[jt39565]

They look like candy.

 

[Louise E. Rothstein]

I remember having heard of certain dubious "promotors" who claimed that their "colored" silkworms would spin colored silk....although at least some of the silkworms that survived to spin did show SOME color in their silk this "dye job" seems not have produced usable quantities of clear,consistent colors.

I am pretty sure that there were other problems:
silkworms injected with dye might have been injured,infected,or both;
and silkworms fed food dye might have become poisoned over time...
BEES fed crushed candy permeated by food dyes died out over the course of a single summer...and beekeepers' "candy" tends to be undyed now.

Breeding silkmoths look quite white.
They look as undyed as the beekeepers' (supplemental) "candy."

And I think I know why:

People who want to breed either species cannot feed them dye.

 

[Pssh]

These are produced by feeding them a specially formulated diet. They are not injected with dye. The only seller in america of the food that I know of is ladysilkworm.com (i think it's .com anyways... Just google it.) I believe she imports it directly from China.

 

[zonbonzovi]

http://ladysilkworm.com/Color-Chow-(New).php

Not recommended for use as feeders and no description of ingredients other then: "colored mulberry chow"...caution, folks.

 

[Pssh]

I'm not sure they would give you the ingredients. Kind of like how mulberryfarms doesn't give you the ingredients on their food.

She said she had fed them to her fish and the fish is okay... I guess more testing is needed.

 

[Louise E. Rothstein]

So the Far East still leads Americans in silkworm culture...
they've achieved "color diets" that produce healthy silkworms,a veritable rainbow of reasonably consistent colors in the silk that they spin,and even a local executrix who promotes these developments in this country. whose

Quite a change from the "fly by night" fellows of yesteryear.

Quite an improvement...

-It's good she is here.

 

[Pssh]

Um, Asia (namely china) has always led other countries in sericulture (I think that's what it's called.) it was a Chinese secret for like ever! Then it finally got out and other countries started to produce them. Sericulture is very old.

 

[bugmankeith]

Is their diet that causes that, and yes do not use these as feeders! You can raise them for fun though.