On the silkworm farms the reproductive process is interrupted at the chrysalis stage, since the moth emerging from the cocoon can cause lacerations which reduce the commercial value of the silk; consequently the majority of the caterpillars are killed.

The cocoons are immersed in boiling water or dried out in ovens. Only the number of moths which are strictly essential for reproduction are allowed to emerge from their cocoons.

The retrieval of the silk filament is a very delicate process, technically known as reeling. This starts with the drying of the cocoons, which is followed by a careful sorting to classify the regularity and obtain homogenous yarns.
The cocoons are divided into the various types (ordinary or double) before starting, and they are then treated separately so as to guarantee the uniformity of the filament.
The operations that follow are deflossing, brushing and reeling.

The cocoon is covered with a down, known as floss, which has to be removed in order to unwind the filament after the end has been found. To do this, the cocoons are lightly brushed using brushes made of twigs so as to find the end of the thread.
The end of the thread is tied to a reel, and the cocoons are immersed in boiling water (to remove the gummy layer that covers them); the filaments from four or eight cocoons are tied together and wound onto a reel.

The resulting filament is called raw silk and is normally made up of 48 individual fibres.
To achieve a strong semi-finished product, four further operations are required: winding, rewinding, doubling and throwing.

The skeins are unravelled on a winder which allows the threads to pass from the skein to the bobbin.

The rewinder instead transfers the thread from one bobbin to another, forcing it to pass through a tiny slit (slubcatcher), which is designed to clean it and remove any knots or tangles.
The doubler combines the threads so as to prepare the yarn for the subsequent operation of throwing and to make it stronger.
In the throwing machine, the bobbins revolve rapidly in a vertical direction, while the reel turns slowly in a horizontal direction, thus twisting the filaments together.
Depending on how the throwing is performed, different types of silk yarns are produced: organzine, crêpe etc.

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