Collecting Cochineal

Luanna is a real friend. She is collecting Cochineal for a friend in Northern California who grows, weaves, and dyes cotton. The cochineal will be used to make carmine dye. 

She is here in Tucson and I met her in the parking lot at Costco. Luanna  plans to take the collections to her friend

Carmine dyes were used by the ancients in Mexico and Central America to make their colorful weavings.

The cochineal is a scale insect from which the crimson-coloured natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America and Mexico, this insect lives on cacti in the genus Opuntia, feeding on plant moisture and nutrients.

The insect produces carminic acid that deters predation by other insects. Carminic acid, typically 17–24% of dried insects' weight, can be extracted from the body and eggs, then mixed with aluminium or calcium salts to make carmine dye, also known as cochineal.[1] Carmine is today primarily used as a food colouring and for cosmetics, especially as a lipstick colouring.