Monarch Eggs Photo

13 years ago

Here is a photo of one of my tiny Asclepias incarnata plants with 21 Monarch eggs on it. I am up to over 200 eggs. I did find some wild milkweed today, so I know it's coming up. Only found two eggs on the wild milkweed. I'll have to hit all the spots around town to get enough!

Sandy

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Comments (11)

MissSherry
13 years ago
Oh my gosh! Was she crazy?
You really will be going all over town looking for milkweed - the monarchs thank you!
Sherry
butterflymomok
Original Author
13 years ago
Sherry,

All my milkweed looks like this! I've collected over 200 eggs, and the females are back. I went out and found eggs on the plants I had removed eggs from yesterday. I'm trying to find foster homes! One of the problems with collecting wild milkweed, is that you can find poison ivy sprouts close by.
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Cghpnd, I'm so sorry you're having bad luck. Did they seem OK when you found them? Are there more cats still living? If so, make sure you separate the eggs from them. You probably want to have multiple containers that you can move the cats and eggs to as they grow, and clean the alternate containers with bleach each time you switch them out. There are nasty diseases that Monarchs can carry and pass on to one another. Some people who raise Monarchs insist that each cat should be kept in an individual container. It certainly makes sense to keep small groups separate, so if one container is infected, at least the other groups have a chance to avoid infection. And wash hands and milkweed carefully. Again, some people soak their milkweed in a weak bleach solution and then rinse it thoroughly before giving it to their cats, in case sick cats have crawled over the leaves before they collected them. Sorry to be a bit of a wet blanket, but there is obviously something seriously wrong, and I want the rest of your experience to be positive. Martha
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Yup, that be the beast! Another way to tell is the behavior. A lot of 1st instar monarchs are lost to the latex from milkweed. A. syriaca seem particularly bad IMO. So, they perform a behavior called "trenching". Your last photo is a good example of this. First instar caterpillars cut leaf veins in a circle, then remove the plant hairs. You can really see how your caterpillar removed the leaf hairs. Then they eat the leaf. It's a wonderful picture. If it is okay with you, I may use it for a lecture. Cheers, Elisabeth As they get larger, they cut larger veins.
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From what I can see in the photos, they look like syrphid fly larvae. These eat the yellow aphids, so are good guys unless you have Monarch eggs, which they may accidentally eat with the aphids.
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Comments (5)
Jeannie, I don't know if you can tell when the photo is enlarged, but the chrysalis has been formed on a piece of fine netting. With this group, I raised them in clear 32 oz food containers, which look like big soda cups. I place a round piece of netting over the top and secure with a rubber band. When the cat forms his chrysalis, it is attached to the netting and I can then place it on a piece of Styrofoam like you see. When they begin to darken, I take the netting and safety pin it to a ribbon dangling from the ceiling in a butterfly rearing cage. When they eclose, they can cling to the netting and dry. Once dry, I release them. Using these containers requires a lot of work if there are large numbers of cats, as I only keep one or two cats per container and they must be fed frequently. I keep cut up pieces of paper towel to use in the bottom of the cups. My son refers to these paper towels pieces as butterfly diapers. These are replaced several times in a 24 period, so the container is kept clean. I've gotten quite good at being able to gently remove the rubber band by pushing it off of the bottom of the container. Then I secure the netting circle with a clothes pin while I work on the container, even when there is a cat clinging to the netting. When this simple equipment is no longer needed, I sanitize and dry the netting and containers, then stack and store for future use. Using these small containers, I can remove leaf material from a milkweed and feed individual leaves. I didn't have a lot of big mw plants this spring, so this allowed me to selectively remove leaves from growing plants and keep the plants producing. Later in the season, I can place a pot of fresh milkweed in the rearing cage and let them have at it until time to replace the pot with a new pot. That is a lot less time consuming, as not having to harvest individual leaves and cleaning one cage a couple of times a day is far easier than many individual containers but I didn't have much potted milkweed available this spring so had to resort to selectively plucking leaves. :-) I got the idea for using these little containers, Clear Food Storage Containers from a past forum member who showed photos of his rearing set up, which he kept in his office. The netting circles I buy packaged, about 12 circles to a package. I've forgotten what they're called but I found them in Wedding Supplies. Actually, the number of spring cats this year has surprised me. If not for having the use of young milkweed from my small greenhouse, these particular little guys would never have reached adulthood because I didn't have enough emerging garden milkweed to support them. Mary
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susanlynne48
13 years ago
Yikes, your milkweed looks like it has an outbreak of whiteheads, Sandy! LOL. I know you're in 7th heaven. Good thing you'll be hanging around the house this summer.

Susan

P.S. I am still laboring over clean up work, planting seeds, potting plants, pulling weeds, fixing the hardscaping, etc. I saw my first Red Admiral today.
butterflymomok
Original Author
13 years ago
7th heaven?!! More like panic attack!! Don't know how I'll feed them all. I may just pack some of them up and bring them over to your place. You'd make an awesome foster mom--you can raise them with your own offspring!!

sandy
minrose
13 years ago
Wow, that is amazing, I am sure you will figure out a way.
butterflymomok
Original Author
13 years ago
Susan,

I'm going to be in OKC this weekend. You interested in some eggs for real?

Sandy
bandjzmom
13 years ago
OH MY WORD Sandy. Well, looks like the old girl was just full to poppin with eggs. Bless her heart. She finally located her host and just dumped them all over it!! I am happy to report that I am seeing Monarchs here in my NW GA yard now, and I watched a female lay her eggs all over my little Common MW plants just yesterday!!~~Angie
butterflymomok
Original Author
13 years ago
Angie, apparently there's a lot of "egg dumping" going on. The reason is the Monarchs got blown farther north by the strong southerly winds, so they are on the edge of the milkweed production. They've got to get rid of their eggs, so they are laying on even the smallest of plants and leaving multiple eggs behind. If there was more milkweed available, they would do the one egg per plant routine. Journey North has a classroom project based on this behavior. It's on the website.

sandy
susanlynne48
13 years ago
Sandy, I don't think I better - I only have one little milkweed to feed the few eggs I have, and that may not be enough. Did you see the Monarch Watch report that the Northern edge of the migration is ahead of the milkweed growth from here North? They are streaming into these sites and there is no milkweed available. This could spell disaster for them.

Susan
butterflymomok
Original Author
13 years ago
That is bad news. The winds here today are horrible. There are very few new eggs, so I suspect the Monarchs have been blown on. Several people have contacted me about all my eggs and what is happening in this area. It is evident that this multiple egg laying is not a good sign, as it indicates the females are having trouble finding host plants. I've got to get out and check out some areas around here where I normally find the wild milkweed and report back to JN as to what I find and whether there are eggs in the wild.

Meanwhile, over 60 of the little dudes have hatched. I am really watching carefully and removing the larvae as soon as they hatch, so no viable eggs will be eaten. I'll try my darndest to get as many of them to maturity as possible.

Sandy
bandjzmom
13 years ago
Oh goodness Sandy. You have 60 cats already? This is a big problem. I did not know about the issue with the winds. I will go and check out that JN classroom project. That explains a lot to me. I have never seen them in my NW GA yard this early in the season, and I have never had eggs in April either. I did overwinter some Tropical MW plants in my garage, and they are getting a really good growth going now. This makes me think that I need to buy a greenhouse so that I can grow the milkweed and have some larger plants ready at this time of year. I know that some people bring their TMW plants into their homes during winter and they do well there. I don't really have the inside space, and I also don't want aphids inside my house.~~Angie

Monarch Eggs Photo

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Monarch Eggs Photo

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MissSherry

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