Monarch WS #613 fatality rates greatly reduced

[Robert61]

I'm sure other "Monarch Landlords" have seen increased Monarch activity too. Collected 12 eggs of the Swamp and Common MW's in last two days. Several leaves had new eggs laid upon them after eggs were collected the day before. Got 29 chrysalis' now and 29 chrysalis' hatched into adult Monarchs, with only 2 looking "OE-like". Three chrysalis' have a small, white "stringlike" thread hanging down. Is this the Tachnid fly? Does it seriously hurt them? Please advise. If they are fatal, then only 5 chrysalis' out of 58 have something wrong with them. At any rate, released 2 healthy males this AM. So far, released 29 Monarchs. When I was doing the OE check on the 2 males before releasing them, a little girl and her mother walked by. They BOTH were curious and commented on how beautiful the Monarchs were. I told them to go up on my front porch and lift the screen off the large aquarium where 5th instar and chrysalis' were; I was too busy collecting OE samples to show them myself. They came back and the little girl, after viewing 29 chrysalis and the two males I was just releasing, looked at me with wide eyes and said, "I want to be a butterfly too!" I refered them to the MonarchWatch website. Made my day today, which by the way is my birthday. Robert at CREATE A WILDLIFE FRIENDLY YARD http://wildlifefriendlylawn.blogspot.com/