Artisans Angkor
When the worms have grown enough, they are put in baskets. From there, they will spin their cocoons in five days and will produce about three hundreds meters of silk each. The cocoons are then put in sunlight to avoid them undergoing their metamorphosis into mature moths. However, 20% of them reach the breeding process and the female moths will lay and hatch its eggs within nine to twelve days.
The cocoons are soaked in hot water in order to soften the sericin (also known as silk gum) which coat the fibres and stick the cocoons together. Silk threads are then unwound and reeled together to produce a single thread. Weavers at Angkor Silk Farm make both raw silk and fine silk that do not have the same texture at all. Sericin has not been completely removed from raw silk threads, which will give a rougher texture to the fabric at the end.
Hemipepsis ustulata
The well-nourished grub begins to spin a delicate framework to support its cocoon.
The "Hemipepsis" cocoon is a brown, silk structure. It is slightly wider at the end from which the wasp will emerge. The inner wall is varnished, but no inner cocoon is seen. Completion takes several hours, and at the end of it, the grub evacuates its alimentary canal; this meconium, or first stool, becomes a hardened mass at the end of the cocoon. The grub is much smaller than it was at the end of feeding because it has expended so much body content on spinning the cocoon and voiding its alimentary canal. The cocoon turns a greasy amber yellow from the original silky gray. The time of hatching is dependent on the season. A cocoon formed early in the summer may hatch the same summer, but a late summer or autumn brood may remain in cocoon form until the following spring or summer. Once the grub reaches the pupal stage, the grub lies extended and quiet. The head capsule splits along the midline, and a glassy, whitish pupa forces its way out of the discarded, shriveling larval skin. The pupa turns creamy yellow, with gray-blue, large compound eyes showing through the thin integument. One can also see the antenna, stubby wing pads, and back spines.