Silkworm hatching problem

[Dave]

Ok, I've got 2000 eggs of zebra silkies in the incubator. As the pics show, I have the incubator at 82 degrees Farenheit, however it fluctuates warmer by 2 degrees occasionally. Ive used an acid-free glue stick generously on the whole petridish to glue the eggs down. The eggs for the last 4 days or so have had a lighter shade to them, almost grey as if they are about to hatch. Only thing is that these eggs were shipped on July 4th from Coastal. I have had a few eggs hatch with small black hatchlings. But after a day of moving around, they seem to just lay motionless. I added small, young mulberry leaves about 24 hours after initial hatching. I also noticed that many of the worms kinda look like they still have the egg attached, if you look on the end of the little black things in the pics. What's going on here???

 

[meatslim]

make sure hte glue hasnt melted. i've gotten eggs before pre-glued to the dish and when they hatched, a lot of of them were stuck because the glue actually became sticky.

 

[Rickky]

My experience with regular silkies isthat anything above 78 degrees is too hot...76 degrees is ideal....

 

[mczoo]

i am a total silkworm newbie but my first set of eggs from my own large silkies bought 6 weeks ago (from Vertex) are now about 2 weeks old.

i agree 82 sounds to high but, This was my experience:

i totally got lazy and left my eggs on my 3 seasons room temps 65-85 usually high 70's without much ado. my wife called me at work one morning after about 2 weeks in this variable climate that black worms had been found. she without any experience fed them and i have almost no deaths. i have new ones hatching every few days due to different sets of eggs.

MY POINT is if clueless like me did it, you may have a bad batch because as far as i can tell mine have survived despite me.

hope this helps

Sean