I'e found 3 healthy monarch caterpillars on my milkweed this year. I only have a few large plants, and a bunch of small ones that all grew on their own, (not sure what variety) but next year they should multiply. One has a few seed pods already. One plant also had 2 corpses that seemed to have been relieved of their fluids. There are some nasty looking wasps on the flowers that i think may have been the culprits.
I'm glad to have seen considerably more monarchs this year in MN than in recent years.

Good news to hear, Joe. Thanks for sharing.

Martha

Martha,

I saw my first Monarch of this season yesterday. She was strong and healthy, although she must have been very hungry as she fed for a long time. We have such a dry, hot spell of weather right now, I doubt there are many wildflowers available for nectar.

She busied herself depositing eggs and I collected 32 yesterday after she left. For once, I feel like I have enough milkweed on hand to feed them. I've really worked hard to raise a lot of milkweed this year so if I did get lucky, I could try to help increase the numbers. Now to get these eggs hatched and thriving.

Do you hatch the eggs inside or keep the container outside? I've got the tray with leaf cuttings inside right now but I keep the house at about 72 degrees and wonder how much longer it will take before they hatch. I did put saran wrap over the tray so the leaf bits wouldn't quickly dry out.

Best of luck with your Monarch eggs. Please keep us updated.

Mary

I saw my first monarch today. He or she (I don't know how to sex), plus I didn't get too close...not wanting to scare it, spent quite a bit of time feeding on my swamp milkweed. I'll hope that within a week, I notice larvae.

Martha, when do you transfer the cats to the paper bags and what size bag do you use? I like the idea of being able to cut out the piece of paper and place them where you want rather than leaving them in the enclosure for other cats to crawl over.

Mary

When they are in their fifth instar or close to it, I put them into the regular size brown grocery bags with a big pile of fresh leaves. It really makes moving them around safe and easy. I wonder if we could do the entire process in the bags. But, cleaning the waste would be impossible. Probably better to transfer them when they get big.

Thank you, Martha, for the information on the bag size and timing on when to place them inside the bag.

I have had four Monarch sightings today. First was a large female, then a large male, then the last two sightings might have been the same Monarch, a smaller, healthy female. They were all very hungry and fed a long time. No eggs from the females but mama pipevine did leave eggs on the little white dutchman's vine today.

I hope everybody is working to keep their nectar and millkweed plants watered and ready to feed the little jewels. Looks like they might be on the move.

Mary