Waiting Patiently...

June 17th and 77 healthy monarchs out the door! But I have been waiting and waiting for more eggs! I have not collected any since May 22. Wah! It is enough to frustrate a butterfly enthusiast to ....order caterpillars from the internet!  Especially since I need caterpillars, eggs, chrysalis and butterflies for the Fourth of July celebration at work. I plan on bringing an aquarium full of life to our annual family fun day. I always talk about butterfly gardening and rearing but rarely do I have any cats or chrysalis to show. However, the weather and schedule of the butterflies' arrival has been so unusual that I will have plenty this year. So, nah, I won't be ordering any cats. from the internet. 

eggs collected yesterday on flowers and leaves

I was lucky yesterday! I went out at about 5:30pm and collected a dozen eggs before the  predatory insects could snatch them up. Late afternoon seems to be a good time of the day to collect. I saw all different species of critters crawling on the MW. There is a lot of life on a MW plant. I saw a few early Oleander Aphids and milkweed beetles that are the prettiest color of red I have ever seen. I saw nymphs of other insects too including one little critter disguised as a piece of fluff, a very tiny bit of fluff and hover fly larva.
Those darn momma monarchs laid eggs on lots of the flower buds on my common MW plants. When they do that you need to take in the whole flower cluster so the bit that the egg is on can remain fresh until hatching. 

my new chrysalis tree, needs a few rocks inside the bottle to keep from getting top heavy

Last weekend when I was cutting down my sweet autumn clematis (I always whack it back to control its size) I uncovered a monarch chrysalis! It was just under the layer of vine that I was cutting back, so lucky indeed! I have never found one outside before! So I brought it in and put the chrysalis on my new chrysalis tree, to keep it safe. It hatched this morning, a beautiful female monarch. She and a few of her friends will be hitching a ride with me as a father's day surprise. We will release them this afternoon at dad's. Happy Father's Day!

butterflies ready for travel

First Butterflies Released!!

Saturday-Sunday I released the first MONARCHS! 
Tuesday June 5th: I came home today to a beautiful sight! 8 healthy monarch butterflies all lined up in a row ready to go! Lee and I realeased 2  female and 6 males. When we were done I looked one last time in the aqauarium and Surpise! One more female hiding in between the sheets of paper towel.
Wed. June 6th: I came home from work today and the last 2 of my first group of monarch hatched. So all 18 of my first batch hatched and out the door! Healthy butterflies too!
I have about 55 more chrysalis' outside in the caterpillar house. They should begin hatching in a few days. 
During the high temps of Memorial Day weekend I did loose 9 caterpillars to the heat. I hope to bounce back in my numbers later in the month. 

I have not collected any eggs since May 22. So it seems (to Butterfly Guru Bob) that this first wave was way early and just passing through. So the butterflies we release this week and on will stick around, mate and lay eggs. I am hoping the egg collecting picks up next week. 

The milkweed is starting to bloom! If you see it or have it in your garden go and look for caterpillars and smell the beautiful fragrance!

My b-fly bush did not die back at all last winter

 I added 51 cats to my caterpillar house today. I placed vases of water covered  in saran wrap (so the cats. don't fall in the water) in the house with common milkweed. 

 I think the cats were happy to move out of the aquarium and into the airy house.

I have about 20 chrysalis so far but they are in the aquarium, They should start hatching in about 8 or 9 days.

Well, I am on my way to a great summer of raising caterpillars! 96 eggs collected already, I even collected a few random eggs on mw that was destined to be food! So luckily I found them before they were eaten! 

The above photo was taken on Friday. this cat is only a couple of hours old and yes, that speck of dust is caterpillar poop! 

Black Swallowtail butterflies that made chrysalis' last summer, waiting to hatch this spring.

These are swamp mw plants just waiting to grow a little larger and the caterpillar house to come out from the garage. When the cats. get big enough, they will go outside into the caterpillar house. 

Black swallowtail caterpillar eggs on dill

The Monarchs Have Arrived!!!!

Well here we go! I have collected 28 eggs so far. I started on May 8th. I normally don't start collecting eggs until late June and things really ramp up in August. This is the earliest I have ever found any eggs. My friend Bob started collecting on the 2nd of May and is now up over 350+. Also the earliest he has ever collected. This is so exciting! The warm weather brought the butterflies here so early! I am going to keep things under control though, no trying to collect hundreds at a time. I want to try raising small "batches" over the long summer and keep the numbers of cats per container smaller. I think over crowding has been a problem for me in the past. 
Last year my final count was 234 healthy butterflies released and  only had to euthanize 2 or three that were deformed when their chrysalis opened. Overall a good record but I think when the population boomed in August, I had too many per container (pre-caterpillar house), When that happens they can die because of cannibalism, bacterial infections and generally unsanitary conditions. That is my goal this year- be more contentious of what the cats need.  So I will keep you updated regularly! 
I am hoping that this weather that has brought a lot of flowers into bloom 4 weeks early, will also nourish them enough that we will have an over all better butterfly season. I have already seen Many red admirals, frittilaries, skippers, mourning cloaks, black swallowtail and a few others. This is a great start! In fact the Chicagoland area was host to an uncommon phenomenon of a red admiral migration. They migrate but not in as many numbers of monarchs and not always in the same area every year. So we were lucky that the late lilac shrubs were in full bloom when they caught the scent of it the red admirals were all over that plant throughout the area. 

I have grown and purchased many new plants for my butterflies. I will be planting about 20 tropical milkweed to accompany the 20 swamp milkweed in the garden. I was very successful at making cuttings from my 1 trop mw that I brought into the greenhouse for the winter. I took regular cuttings and ended up with about 25 plants. Verbena bonnariensis is a must have for any butterfly gardens. It is an annual with skinny but strong stems and clusters of tiny purple flowers. Doesn't sound too appetizing right, well if you are a butterfly this plant is a magnet! Another must have is zinnias! Any zinnias, any size and the brighter the colors the better! My favorite butterfly flower is Mexican Sunflower, Tithonia. It is a rather tall annual, 4-6' so you need a little more room than the average annual. But it is worth it!  The last one I will suggest is Heliotrope, a favorite of all butterflies, the plants can be overwintered in a 3 season room or greenhouse and cuttings are really easy. If you'd like to know more leave me a message! Happy Plantings!

Feb 5th Already! Oh My!

Oh how embarrassing it is that I have neglected my blog for so long. So sorry friends!

I have dug out my monarch journal and the official count for the 2011 season is 226! The last monarch was released on October 3rd by Lee and she hung around for about three days. So I got a few great shots of her.

Believe it or not that photo is from my cell phone. I am really surprised it came out so nice.

So to recap 2011 a little more...

The common milkweed was spreading like crazy, especially into my neighbor's yard. I will have to take care of that next year. She eventually cut down all the MW and I almost had a heart attack until a week later I followed a female monarch while she layed no less than 50 eggs on the brand new sprouts. ;)

The Tithonia Mexican sunflower was an excellent decision to plant. My plants reached 7' tall and the three plants took up about 8 sq. ft. They look very homely when you put them in the ground, then you will this thing ever grow? It sits for a little while then shoots up fast and flowers late in the season. Mine flowers in late July- Oct because I didn't plant it until late June. I also added lots of Zinnia this year and was very please with them.

I again, had a huge monarch egg collection surge in late July and then a huge die-off in early Aug. This is the second year I have had this. I now think that my cats are too crowded in the flat containers. I need to spread them out even more. It seems like whatever is killing them spreads from one cat to the next and there is no stopping it.

Adding the tropical mw was another good idea. I had about 7 large pots planted all on tropical mw. The butterflies ( all species) liked it. I collected a fair amount of eggs from these plants.

So if you are thinking of "beefing" up your butterfly garden this year, add topical mw, zinnias, and Tithonia!

Oh My It's August Already?!

August is upon us, summer is halfway gone. My college workers leave this week to get packed and move to school. Sad, for me summer is almost over but with the arrival of August comes the height of butterfly season. From now until early September you should see more of the little beauties. I have been steadily releasing butterflies all week 13 monarchs in one day and today, 13 black swallowtails. The total as of this afternoon is 72 butterflies. Definitely not the numbers I had last year but I am happy I could add the black swallowtail butterflies to my repertoire. They really are not that difficult. I am having an easier time this year because I am actually growing the plants the cats need. So instead of putting stems of dill in vases I put pots of carrot and dill plants in the cat house and let the cats eat right off the live plants. So much easier than putting tiny stems of dill into tiny vases.

My garden is not only butterfly friendly, I grow many plants to attract butterflies to lay eggs. The obvious being milkweed for monarchs. I grow four specie of MW. With the addition of tropical MW I have a decent variety. I moved a couple of large pots of tropical MW to the driveway from the side of the house. I did find more eggs after that. The monarchs still prefer laying eggs on the big common MW. I also decided to grow carrots in pots this summer, just to see if it would work. Because how do you know if will work if you don't try? That was great for the black swallowtails! I have grown a Duthman's pipe vine for 7 years now, mostly in vane. I haven't seen any pipe vine butterflies or cats. However this summer I found evidence of chewing on my vine. So next summer I will be much more aware earlier. I assume it will be just as easy to raise those cats indoors as the others. I added one Lindera benzoin spice bush to the garden this year. it is a nice native shrub, basic look, green leaves etc etc, it has beautiful bright yellow fall color! I have been told that if you plant it, they will come. So hopefully next year I will see those incredible cats of the spice bush swallowtail. I also planted rue this spring and to my delight I found one of the plants all chewed up! Rue is another host plant for black swallowtail cats. Other butterflies spotted in my garden this year? Skippers and lots of them, red admiral, cabbage white, question mark, Eastern tiger swallowtail and of course monarchs and black swallowtails. Just not as many as in years past.

More later!