Location?

Try misting them with water once a day. But be very careful about too much sun. You could also put them under an incandescent table lamp about 1 1/2 ft away. If you have a temperature gage, check to make sure temp is not above 87.

Keep a good light on your other caterpillars, I use a broad spectrum light that I got at target. Inside they do not get the clues for day length.

Lastly, Mother Nature does not put all her eggs in one basket. Some pupae will take longer to emerge. I had a couple from an wintering over group that didn't hatch until mid summer. Staggering over emergence can prevent extinction.

Thanks, runmede. So much good information!

To answer your question, I am just north of Dallas, Texas. The temperature is already getting into the 90s here, and I'm sure it will be into the 100s sometime next month at the latest. The caterpillars seem to be doing fine under the umbrella with the heat, but it seems impossible to tell with the chrysalides.

Is the table lamp just a normal lamp? Or is "incandescent" some special thing?

Is the "broad spectrum light" just a normal sized bulb, or do I need something special to hold it? If it is a normal sized bulb, could I just put that bulb in the lamp?

With the lamps, do you keep them on all the time, or are they on some sort of a timer?

Wow! Raising these caterpillars is more complicated than I thought. Hopefully, I'll get it figured out without losing a bunch of them.

Thanks for all the info.

See the link below for Sunlight lamps from Amazon.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunlight Lamps

The incandescents are just regular light bulbs and not florescent ones.

I just got a funny phone call. My little girl is 3, and she just called and said, "Daddy, my caterpillars have diarrhea. Are they OK?"

My guess is not too many people outside of this forum have received that phone call. But I'm sure everyone here knows exactly what's going on and many of you have probably received that call. Thanks to ya'll, I have a good idea of what's going on, too.

Hopefully, these will eclose.

Thanks, Runmede, for all the great info.

LOL!! How cute is that. We absolutely know what she is talking about. All our swallowtails get diarrhea. And, if you ever raise moths, they get diarrhea, too. Huge diarrhea.

You don't have to absolutely have a daylight lamp, but I feel that it helps when I am rearing caterpillars away from the hot sun of direct sunlight through a window.

I am no expert, but I have raised a goodly number of Black Swallowtails. My advice would be to not give up. Just put them somewhere where you can keep a frequent eye out for an eclosure, and then forget about them and move on with life. They can take a really long time to decide to eclose. Don't worry. :) ~~Angie

Thanks, Angie for the reassurance. As you can see, patience isn't my strength. So, I will try to be patient and wait them out.

YEP, you have to be patient with those guys. I have had them to pupate in July and not eclose until the following April or May. Never give up on a Swallowtail chrysalis unless it is rotten and crumbling! :) :)

My record with a black swallowtail chrysalis is 18 months - I'm not kidding, it really happened!

Maybe yours are the long lived type, spiroan!

Sherry

WOW! From July to the next April or May and 18 months are a LONG time! I just assumed they would eclose relatively quickly if they pupated in the summer. Maybe I'll get a more solid milkweed patch growing. At least I could be a little more confident with what monarchs may do.

Just wanted to share with everyone that one of the chrysalides eclosed. It was a newer one, but a beautiful female. We let it go that afternoon, and it was really neat to watch her fly away. I'm still not sure if I'm doing things correctly or not, but it makes me feel better to know that at least one of them made it.

Thanks for all your help. Hoping to see more soon!

Wonderful! I'm so glad you got to see it fly away. I've not raised many, but I always left the chrysalis out doors in a protected spot. They all appear to have eclosed, but not that I got a chance to see.

Martha

That's the way I prefer it too, Martha.
I raise all my cats to the mid 5th instar then outside they go. I just gets too hairy feeding all those cats, esp BSTs. I still feel like I'm giving them a huge head start this way.

I have my eye on 3 Mourning Cloak pupae I discovered in the garden. I hope to catch all three eclosing soon, since I'm off days.

John

Good news Spiroan!! Congrats. See, patience is the key! Never give up on those Swallowtail chrysalides. :) Angie

Spiroan, that is great news, and how exciting that you got to see it fly away. Mine all went to chrysalis in the garden, so I will never really know. I might decide to raise some inside next year if I have as many eggs as I did this year.
Congrats, Deb

Two more have eclosed since. My little girl has let all three of them go, and they actually seem to enjoy staying on her shirt for a while after she goes outside. So, she just sits and poses for my wife to take pics. Since the first batch, I don't know how many eggs have been laid. We have ten more caterpillars in her cage right now (with 4 chrysalides); we've given quite a few away, and there are probably fifteen more caterpillars plus more eggs out in the butterfly garden - all from three dill plants and two fennel plants. Right now, I only have the black swallowtail caterpillars. So, I'll be excited when I'm able to get some more host plants. But there are a number of different butterflies that visit the garden, whereas we had virtually NO butterflies in our yard the last several years. All in all, this butterfly gardening is fun stuff.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement!

Awwwww. how heartwarming. You know that is making a big impression on her. The more that we expose our kids and teach them about nature, the more likely it is that they will grow into adults who try to make a difference for nature.

Sounds like you are a booming success with the Black Swallowtails. Just keep plugging away and getting more host plants as you go along. Some Milkweed for the Monarchs, some Passionvine for the Gulf and Variegated Fritillaries, Some Senna for the yellow butterflies. I believe that Texas is the state that boasts the biggest number of butterfly species in the whole country, so the sky is really the limit for you there.~~Angie

Here is a nice list of host plants per species if you don't have it bookmarked already.
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/butterfly/2004041551026161.html