Abstract: Extracting technical conditions of carminic acid from cochineal was examined in this paper, and effects of pH, concentration, extracting times, extracting temperature, extracting time, and particle size of raw material on the yield of carminic acid were investigated. The extracting conditions were optimized by the uniform design, and the best suitable conditions were determined as follows: concentration of the extraction solution 20%, extracting time 12 h, extracting temperature 80℃, particle size 0.4 mm, and the ratio of raw material/solution 1∶5. Furthermore, the light and heat stability of carminic acid was studied, and the results showed that carminic acid was stable under the darkness and the scattered rays of indoor, but it was unstable in the sunshine and the incandescent lamp, its aqueous solution was stable even at lower than 90℃.