Monarch Activity Picking Up

[Mona Miller]

Males chasing males, males chasing females. Females laying eggs. I was surprised to see that they had even laid on stems of some milkweed that I had pulled to the outside of my tent after the larvae had mulched them down.

[Wyvern]

The other day our boss was out looking at one of the new gardens (natural dye garden) to see how it was coming along and a rather old and tattered monarch bullied her way past him to get to a small tropical milkweed plant right behind him to deposit an egg (normally the monarchs stay away from the milkweeds when people are hanging around..they wait till ya leave).

It was hilarious watching the boss-man stand there and yell at a butterfly to STOP LAYING EGGS. Tooooo many eggs this year. Last year was bad. This year he is determined to NOT raise monarchs.... too stressful he says. LOL.

[Mona Miller]

Don't worry. There's a lot of predators this year, too. And, your milkweed may get chewed a bit, but they may not make it to adulthood. So, why plant the milkweed, if not for the monarchs and isn't it supposed to get laid on and eaten. Duh! Now, why is he the boss.

[dandjtaylor]

I have to agree with Mona. The Milkweeds are a beautiful plant, but many others that are just as beautiful if you are not a butterfly lover. Of my 75+ milkweed plants, most of them have the bottom half of their leaves gone from me picking them in order to keep 200 cats fed daily. I even stop occasionally at a wild patch so that I don't have to use all of mine up. I say, let the cats eat and nature replenishes with nice tender shoots that may also blossom yet again.

If I stopped collecting eggs today, I have the potential to have reared over 550 this summer. Imagine if June would have been better!

So if ya' grow milkweed, expect and welcome, the little chubby munchers.

Dwayne
Salem, MA
Waystation #2638