How will Midwest deluge affect migration?

[James Price]

Those of you who got drenched last week might be wondering the same thing I am: What affect will these severe storms have on the monarchs? The last two weeks of August are usually the start of the migration in southern Wisconsin, and it continues until late September. What is the effect of losing a whole week at the beginning? It seems that any late egg layers were out of luck, too.

[Paul Cherubini]

There are lots of monarchs in Ontario, Michigan and Minnesota and South Dakota right now http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/curr ... arch_roost

[James Price]

Perhaps I have answered my own question.

Yesterday, Sept. 2, we had a female laying eggs all over our yard. That has to be the latest we've had eggs in the five years we've been rearing monarchs. The weather last week was fantastic, sunny and in the 80s, and the forecast looks the same for this week. So perhaps the migrants will catch a break after all that rain. Of course, the eggs we just took in (almost 20) will have to hurry at the beginning of October to stay ahead of the cool weather. But I tagged wild monarchs into October last year, too.

[Mona Miller]

The Monarchs will keep laying as long as there is milkweed standing. I had a friend in McLean who took some in in October after a hard frost. The caterpillars made it thru a hard frost. She brought me 7 butterflies to send down to Virginia Beach, VA in late November with a friend. Virginia Beach usually does not have any hard frost. I figured also that that would give them a jump on heading further south to warmer climates.