3rd large round of Monarchs coming

[texas butterfly]

Okay, I raised about 30 Monarchs for the first round.

My 2nd round, I still have 40 Monarchs in PUPA stage. They should start errupting soon.
Another 4 were released last week.

For the 3rd round
Now, I brought in another 12 eggs which have hatched or were caterpillars when I brought them in.
Just today brought in another 12 eggs.

And I even have a small yard and only about 8 milkweed plants of varying size. Most of those were cut down feeding the 40 PUPAs in waiting. Or were cut down due to aphids or molding leaves. That is a lot of monarchs that can be supported in a small area.

So, it really does highlight that even a little milkweed left naturally can help in a big way.

Some of the milkweed has bounced back really fast, so I'm thinking I'll be okay with the milkweed.

My goal for next year was 100. I'm coming close to that in my rookie year at Monarch rearing.

[NickiM]

Congratulations! I've looked for more cats and eggs every day, but haven't found anymore. I did see a female on my butterfly bush this morning, so hopefully, she'll leave me some little egg-shaped gifts.

[dandjtaylor]

Congrats Texas. My rookie year yielded only 50 with 25 tagged. This past winter, I redesigned our garden with mainly monarchs in mind but with black swallowtails, American Ladies, Frits and cabbage whites. All but the Frits (since there were no viloets last year) have given us eggs/cats/chrys/butterflies. But the Frits will be next year as I have seen several Great Spangeled Frits on the butterfly bushes.

Anyway, I digress, so your "sophomore year" should be much more successful using what you have learned. To date, we have reared over 175, with about 150 tagged. About 15-20 emerge every day and with last nights census, we have the potential for 645 successful rearings before it is over.

Keep up the good, and rewarding, work.

Dwayne
Salem, MA
Waystation #2638

[Mona Miller]

The deal with Great Spangled Frits. is that they will lay their eggs in the fall, eggs hatch to first instar cats, and then winter over. They will lay their eggs where the rhizomes of the violets are located. So to attract them, you must already have the violets and you must not clean up that area. They hide in the area as very young caterpillars. Too much cleaning and you are throwing them away.

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species?l=1675
Great Spangled Fritillary Life History

[dandjtaylor]

Mona

Yes, you are correct. I failed to mention that this year, I have several nice patches of violets and do expect the Frits to find them for the fall. I have let them grow to very nice bunches so hopefully they'll oviposit in the area. The Frits are extremely pretty and take a great photo with their silver spots.

By the way, Mona, I borrowed an idea from your activities and in memory of my next door neighbor, who passed yesterday, we are going to have a release on the 5th when all of his children are in from other states. Pretty easy to prdict now that so many are eclosing daily.

I'll let you know how it went.

Dwayne

[mlmj0210]

And I even have a small yard and only about 8 milkweed plants of varying size. Most of those were cut down feeding the 40 PUPAs in waiting. Or were cut down due to aphids or molding leaves. That is a lot of monarchs that can be supported in a small area.

So, it really does highlight that even a little milkweed left naturally can help in a big way.

Some of the milkweed has bounced back really fast, so I'm thinking I'll be okay with the milkweed.

My goal for next year was 100. I'm coming close to that in my rookie year at Monarch rearing.

I agree. I have about 12 milkweeds and have done very well with eggs this year. Total releases to date are 60 with andother 60 in chryslis state.
This year I decided to use milkweed from local field to feed and save my milkweed for egg laying. This seemed to work well.
It's fun to be so successful while living in the city

[Mona Miller]

By the way, Mona, I borrowed an idea from your activities and in memory of my next door neighbor, who passed yesterday, we are going to have a release on the 5th when all of his children are in from other states. Pretty easy to prdict now that so many are eclosing daily. Dwayne

Not my originial idea. This has been done for years.

Butterflies are a symbol of the soul:
http://www.bugbios.com/ced4/symbol_list3.html

I wrote this poem for reading at furnerals, when butterflies are released:

One Last Dance with A Butterfly

Come fly away with me,
Take with you my smile of joy,
Take with you my delight in your image,
Shimmering wings of rainbows in the wind,
Let the sweet nectar of the flowers be our drink,
Let the sun keep us surrounded with its warmth,
Come fly away with me,
Into the sky, up, up and away,
Let us dance with the wind,
Into the sky, up, up, towards the heavens,
Just a memory which brings a smile,
I am gone, but never alone, dancing in the wind.
Author: Mona Miller

[Wyvern]

My goal this year was to tag 500 monarchs.

My first and second waves are in chrysalis now. From the first wave 2 emerged which have been tagged and released. My third wave is 5th instars that are in the process of going into chrysalis. The fourth wave are 3rd & 4th instars. 5th wave are eggs, 1st & 2nd instars.

I have collected well over 600 so far this year, but the number drops due to losses. My current count of "living" right now is 488.

165 chrysalis
318 cats
5 eggs

I lost a couple of cats and chrysalids to parasitic flies. I also had about 2 dozen cats die from "black" and "green" deaths. The majority of the losses have been infertile eggs or fertile eggs that failed to hatch (about a 100 or so) . So overall my losses have been relatively great since I am not losing very many cats/chrys. this year.

[texas butterfly]

Awesome to find that many eggs and successfully have butterflies.

I went out this evening to get more milkweed and found that some egg dumping had happened.
5 more eggs and 3 more small cats. I went in dark and suspect there are more cats due to the holes in some more of the milkweeds.

The garden center nearby had several nice milkweed plants and they had holes all in them. I guess I'd been bringing home more milkweed and more cats.

A lot of my cuttings are rooting and making some nice leaves. But, of course this is where I found several eggs and cats.

Every sprig of nice clean milkweed that I harvested had one catepillar on it and one egg.

So in the jar of little cats they went and in the little jar of eggs the others went. I cut out a small piece with the egg so as not to waste it and put the remainder of the leaf in with the bigger cats.

I'm also trying to save some of the smaller/younger leaves for the smaller cats.

Seems they do better with younger cats getting the younger and more tender leaves. That was a tip that I think Mona put on board about why a cat was not growing. Worked with a small cat that seemed to not be growing.

Happy Monarch raising!!!!

[Mona Miller]

Babies need nice tender growth and older caterpillars need more mature growth. Someone else taught me that. Glad to share with others.