Question Mark Eggs!!

Hi Ken,

I looked it up on line and it was a Question Mark. The tiny egg looks green, or what I think might be an egg. The little butterfly's behavior appeared to me like it was depositing eggs on the underside of the leaves. I should take my magnifying glass out and try to look at it more clearly.

Woohoo, I found eggs on the underside of two leaves. Looking at them with my magnifying glass, it looks like they are stacked on top of each other!

Hi

Your lucky I just found my Stinging nettles I hope I get some of them and also get Red admirals.

Jacob

Congrats, Mary!

I've found question marks on false nettles quite a few times. They're easy to raise, go through their instars quickly.

Sherry

Thank you, Sherry. I've never seen these eggs so raising them will be fun. I removed one of the leaves with eggs on it and put it in a plastic sandwich box. I put a piece of paper towel with a few sprinkles of water on it under the leaf, then just laid the top on the box. I didn't seal it tightly. Thought this would work to keep the eggs safe until I could ask you exactly what to do.

I hope you will give me some advice as to how to proceed and what to expect.

Mary

Mary, I found about ?12-15 early instar question mark caterpillars on my hops vines!

Actually, a few are probably middle instar - I sure hope they haven't been parasitized! I didn't fertilize the vines early this year, because last year they overgrew. I did fertilize them lightly about a week ago, and we've had lots of rain the past two days, so hopefully they'll grow faster - I'm going to need more leaves than I've now got. I've got tons of false nettles, though, and very pretty and clean looking, so I put big branches in the middle of their containers and draped some of the vines over the leaves of the false nettle to encourage them to eat it, in case my hops vines don't grow fast enough. I even dropped one little hatchling that was hanging by a thread off its hop leaf onto a nettle leaf. I figure a very young one might accept the new food better.

I hope you're having luck with yours!

Sherry