Sherry, Thanks, and I'm pretty confident that all or mostly all will emerge as butterflies. I was so excited about getting Giant Swallowtails that I was patrolling the rue every day for eggs, but there were a few that I missed and I found them as cats. Since she laid most of them on the seed heads, they weren't too hard to find. Tracey, Oh, I'm sorry if my post got you freaking out. I thought that people knew that they can emerge as wasps the following year. Mostly all of mine overwinter. The year before that, in 2007, I only had two come out as wasps, but then again, I had less BST that year too. Just don't worry about it too much. I still have most of my BST to emerge that overwintered, and I'm pretty confident that they'll end up being butterflies and not wasps. I think it was probably a coincidence that the last four to come out last year were wasps. You sound like me with kidnapping cats. I went to Lowe's last year and looked at their parsley plants for cats and found 6 altogether. I put them all on one plant and bought the plant. It's not that I needed more parsley, but I couldn't stand the thought of someone buying the parsley and killing them. I'm sure there are lots that that does happen to, which I wish it wouldn't, but we can't save them all. Good luck with your BST's! Cathy

I sure hope so, MissSherry. Have you seen any Gulf Frits yet? I have seen none of these. My Passionflower is taking over the fence waiting for these beauties.

Congrats! :) You will have more and more of them coming back, now that they know where to find you. :) Soon you'll be complaining that there's not enough food for them. :) Side note: BSTs are like the nija butterflies, at my house. Until this last weekend, I ONLY EVER saw them when I was releasing them--they'd fly away. And then I'd find more eggs and/or cats later, so I knew they'd been back... but NEVER caught them flying around. Just because you don't see the butterflies, doesn't mean you don't have them. :)

I didn't get to see the actual hatching, but he (yes, it was a male) dried his wings and then I opened the screened cage and he flew out. I watched him fly into the sun and that was it. I hate to admit this, but I cried. It's just so beautiful to me. It was my first actual "release" witnessed. I was really hoping to see it all because I'm working from home and knew it would hatch today... and I missed it. I did release a Monarch last Fall but I missed that hatching and I turned away for the 2 seconds that it took for him to fly off, so I didn't see the best parts! I'm a newbie to the hobbie and only have those 2 releases under my belt so far and it's so exciting!!