Laura E. Lee, age 10, of Jonesboro, Georgia, for her question:
What are kermes?
You may have seen kermes without knowing it. If you wish to see a sample, visit a museum that displays wall hangings of ancient tapestry. Make sure that the fine needlework was done before America was discovered. Then you may be sure that the red threads in the embroidered pictures were colored with kermes dye from kermes insects.
In ancient days, people depended upon kermes bugs to dye their threads and fabrics with rosy reds. History experts suspect that this trick was discovered by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago. They noticed that clusters of little red balls appear on certain oak trees that grow around the Mediterranean Sea. The word "kermes" was used to name them. In ancient days most people thought::that the pea sized red beads were part of the tree. They were called kermes berries and their tree was called the kermes oak.
No one knows how long ago the Phoenicians started using them. They learned when to pick them and how to soak out the red dye to color their fabrics. And their early trading ships sailed from port to port with handsome kermes red robes and cloaks. Kermes dye was famous before the days of Moses and in the Bible it is called "tola" or "scarlet." But :. people who wore rich red kermes robes did not know that the dye came from a bug called a scale insect. The dye is produced by the wingless female kermes insect.
She is a pea sized bug who lives on the sap of the kermes oak. She seals herself to the bark with a scaly shield, looking for all the world like a part of the tree. At the proper season, she lays a brood of eggs and colors them red from a special substance in her body. The eggs are clustered with her under the scaly crust and together they look like a red red berry sized bump. This is the time to gather the kermes bugs to make rosy red dye.
The mother kermes and her unhatched brood are suffocated, usually in vapor from boiling vinegar, and the bodies are dried in the sun or in ovens.. When soaked, the red substance seeps out and forms a strong red liquid dye. When linens and woolen fabrics are soaked in the dye, they are stained red and remain red through many washings. Some kermes dye still is used in eastern countries. When America: was discovered, most weavers of the world' changed to a red dye called cochineal. This New World dye also came from.a scale insect.
But it is much stronger than the Old World kermes dye. Only one pound of cochineal can do the work of 10 or 12 pounds of kermes dye.
Both these natural dyes lasted until the modern age of science. Then our clever chem¬ists discovered how to make stronger and cheaper red dyes from coal tar. Nowadays, few people go out to gather red tinted scale insects.
The hordes of teeming insects are classified in more than 20 separate orders. More than 36,000 varieties belong in the order Homoptera. This scientific term means "same¬wings" because the winged members have two pairs of wings that are alike. All of them have mouths for piercing plants and siphoning up juicy sap. Each type feeds on its own favorite plant. The kermes favor a certain oak tree; the cochineal favors certain cactus plants of Mexico and Central America. Cicadas and leafhoppers, aphids and lacewings also belong in the insect order Homoptera.