Insects in Chinese Culture -Zachary Huang 1.
Sericulture is an invention by ancient Chinese people.
It started about 5,200 years ago according to archaeological findings. The most commonly used silkworm is Bombyx mori, which is presumably derived through long-term artificial selection from Bombyx mandarina. This can be inferred from ancient poems written during that period. Ancient Chinese also had much knowledge about silkworm biology. In the county records of Yong-jia in southern Zhejiang Province in 4th century AD, a method was described to rear silkworm for 8 generations a year by keeping the eggs and in low temperature to avoid diapause in the next generation.