500 black swallowtail eggs.....

16 years ago

Well, last summer I had planted a few fennel plants, I had let it go to seed, and this spring after I had raked my flower bed to level it, I had fennel everywhere! Well, I didn't have the heart to pull it out.

I went out there to really work in my garden last night, and I think the butterflies have been steadily at work since it finally stopped raining here. I have at least 500 eggs out there....Most of them are spread out amoung the fennel, but on one very small fennel plant there are probably 60 eggs. There is no way this little plant can support that many caterpillars. Any ideas of what to do with them. Right now, I am thinking about letting them all hatch, then when they get bigger moving them to different fennel plants, but I worry about hurting them, or dropping them while trying to get them onto a small fennel stalk, and honestly, I really do not like picking up caterpillars.

Bringing them inside is not a real great option, as I need a break from raising caterpillars, as this summer has gotten incredibly busy for me, they are going to have to do it the natural way outside.

I must say that it is crazy to see that many eggs on one small plant, and I am not sure exactly what to do about it.

Elaine

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Comments (11)

LaurelLily
16 years ago
If you don't want to handle them, just snip off the part of the plant they're on and let bring them to your other fennel, letting them crawl on to the new host plant. : )

I'm jealous of all your cats! That will be so beautiful when they start to emerge.
lcpw_gw
16 years ago
I second what laurellily says - but to be clear, you don't need to stand holding the sprig of fennel they're on to wait for them to walk over to the new fennel! Do wait until they're not teensy (so walking a few inches isn't a big deal for them), but then when you snip off a bit of the tiny fennel plant with several caterpillars, bring it to a spot where you think they'll have less competition, and secure it to the other fennel plant with a clothespin or something similar. Ideally you want some of the leaves of the old piece of fennel to be touching leaves of the plant you want them to walk onto. (Sorry if all this is obvious!!)

I use clothes pins with dill and fennel. When I'm encouraging similar transfers of monarch caterpillars from one milkweed to another, I'll use a clothespin if they're on a milkweed vine (dominant milkweed here), but if I just have a single leaf that they're on, I'll use a safety pin to pin it to a leaf of the plant I want them to migrate to.

My outdoor caterpillars seem to suffer a lot of predation when small. I like to bring them indoors for the first 2 or 3 instars, and then put them back outdoors. I don't know if I'm right, but I feel like they're better able to survive against at least the spiders at that point. And I keep a good lookout for praying mantises, and move them to the vegetable garden down the block! (I move a couple each year.)

- LCPW
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Martha, Congrats on the BST eggs! I'm raising some cats right now and one just pupated the other day. I was to Walmart yesterday and I just had to buy a parsley plant that had four cats on it. I gingerly walked to the checkout because I didn't want to jostle the cats off of the plant. I asked her to be careful with the plant when she went to take it from me to scan it. I was going to take it back from her to carry it to the car when she was done but before I could grab it, she started to put it in a bag. Oh, horrors! I practically yelped for fear of her knocking them off of the plant. "Please give it to me, that has caterpillars on it!" Ha, that poor checkout girl probably thought, "Oh, the kooks I get in here!" LOL I took it from her and actually, she seemed interested to learn that they were Black Swallowtail caterpillars and that they'll turn into a butterfly. I think the people behind me were also listening. :) I also showed them to the person who loaded my peat moss in the car. She said, "Oh, aren't they adorable!" I told her about my butterfly raising and she said that it's something her daughter would probably enjoy doing. I told her to keep an eye on their parsley and dill plants and she might find some on them.
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susanlynne48
16 years ago
Elaine - so good to see you back on the forum! The BSTs are very prolific this year! I have tons and tons and tons of eggs. I bring in snippets of leaves with the eggs on them, and wrap a stem of fennel with a wet paper towel, and then wrap that in plastic. I lay the snippets on the fennel cutting. If it starts to dry out before the eggs hatch, I cut a new one and carefully put the eggs on the new cutting. The eggs have been hatching very quickly of late - 2 or 3 days!

I have them all over my fennel (green and bronze), Rue, and Zizia.

I have some parsley planted, too, but no eggs or cats on that yet.

Susan
tdogmom
16 years ago
WOW ! Boy, am I ever envious. We have had basically NO Anise Swallowails around here this year (our West Coast version of the BST) so I am sort of in that 'poor, pitiful me' state, and it doesn't help that hubby says, "Hey Sherry, where are the ASTs you usually have? I like those."

The recs from the others above are great. Swallowtails are alsao notorious for cannibalism so chances are you won't be finding 500 butterflies anytime soon... ;P
tdogmom
16 years ago
I was going to say that I am really busy right now, too and have decided to LEAVE all Monarch eggs and cats (and some Gulf Frits) out in the garden *GASP* beginning this last week which is just unheard of. Each time I spot one I just say, "So sorry! You are just on your own and I hope you do okay." If I find a caterpillar in a location that I don't think is 'good,' then I move it to a better one with more Milkweed or whatever. I am gone for a week to Sacramento and hubby just can't deal with all the caterpillars PLUS the dog...
MissSherry
16 years ago
500 eggs, wow!
Ditto to what everybody else has said!
MissSherry
elaineoz
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you everyone.....the crazy butterflies are out there constantly laying more and more eggs. I will try to let the eggs hatch and then move some of the completely covered with eggs fennel to another area where there might be more for them to eat.

Elaine
cecropia
16 years ago
500 eggs!? That's incredible! Apparently the butterflies don't realize there's not enough food to support that many cats,or maybe they know a lot will be eaten by predators.
Feel free to send me some eggs,as I've got tons of fennel and rue with nothing to eat it.
Dan
aggscott
16 years ago
That is amazing, can you take a picture of it? That would look like so many little jewels on the fennel. I have three BST's that just hatched-we need to send some of those busy Moms up here to lay some eggs on my Fennel, parsley and dill I have planted for them-they can use the Rue too if they want. It's all ready for them~*

Aggie
susanlynne48
16 years ago
We are experiencing lots of butterflies this year in Oklahoma, BUT........there are lots of predators to go along with them. I guess that's how the population is checked. I have so many BSTs I can't possibly bring them all in, especially with all of the other butterflies I'm raising as well. Geez, I found MORE QM eggs on the elm stem I was bringing in to feed the QMs I already have! Whew!

I best enjoy this birthday party we're having this summer, because it's likely we'll be back to our "norm" next year!

Elaine, have you gotten any Pipevine Swallowtails yet?

I want to put in a plug for the Zizia here. The leaves are SO MUCH more substantial than fennel and dill, even Rue! I don't think the BSTs are going to require as much of this food as they do the other host plants. I will keep you posted on that.

Susan
linda_centralokzn6
16 years ago
Congratulations Elaine! That is ALOT of eggs!!! That sure is alot of hungry mouths to feed. It's sure been a great year for Black Swts., and other butterflies as well.

500 black swallowtail eggs.....

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500 black swallowtail eggs.....

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