mosquito tents

[monarchrose]

I am trying something new this summer. I have been using Reptarian net cages and Glad plastic ware with Oasis foam to hold the milkweed. While this works very well, it is difficult to care for many caterpillars at a time. Last year I started also raising milkweed in large pots. I then placed the cats on the plants which I moved indoors next to a sliding glass door and under grow lights. This year I purchased one of those mosquito protection tents. They are advertised showing people eating their picnic lunch at a table inside, free of biting insects. I think it's about 8 x 8 x8. There is a large zip door. The sides are netting and the top is fabric. It was about $70, and just pops open and folds back up for storage. There is no floor, but the walls of the tent are reinforced at the bottom with pvc type piping. I placed bricks all along the edge of the floor, so critters can't get in or out. (Before I did this, I did lose one caterpillar who wondered off looking for a place to pupate.) I watch and when the cats get very large I move them to the Reptarian cage on the milkweed / Oasis dishes. This is mainly because we are planning a vacation in a week, and I can leave the Reptarian cage doors open if there are chrysalides inside. Then the butterflies can emerge and be on their way. I am afraid that butterflies might not find their way out through the tent door. The tent is on our cement patio under our deck, but it still gets a fair amount of light. As the plants become defoliated, I switch them with other potted plants that are in a sunny area. So far so good...

[monarchrose]

I forgot to say that here are ties on the tent corners to hold it down in the wind. I used 4 large heavy construction type "cinder blocks" for this.

[Sarah Dalton]

These are great for raising butterflies outside, too. But if you have raccoons in your area be sure to bring in any nectar at night or they'll claw their way in and have a feast!

We use an 8x10 screen tent for our outdoor display and are now putting in plantings of milkweed, lantana, bfly bush, and heliotrope around the edge of the central rock patio.

Sarah

[monofarch]

I tried a screen tent of this sort once and found that it can be problematic. When the cats crawled to the top to pupate, a few of them "cooked" because it got pretty hot up there and they died.

[paintedtrillium]

I too had great success with screened containers (indoors). I used a product from Carolina called an insectaria. I don't think they carry the smaller size there any more...but maybe someone else does. It was a rectangular form made of pvc pipe and had a zippered mesh screen around it. I harvested fairly large cuttings of milkweed and used small mouth plastic jugs as vases (with paper towels shielding the opening to the jug to keep the cats from dropping in and drowning). They could then crawl up and down the plants and feed wherever they desired. It was pretty easy to change out the plants, I just transferred the cats to my fresh plants in extra jugs and I kept paper towels in the bottom of the insectarium to catch the droppings. Potted milkweed would work as well. Most of my cats chose to pupate on the undersides of leaves - and a few did migrate to the top of the insectarium. I kept cats of the same age together. I had great success with only 1 out of 12 cats failing to completely change.