so very sorry to hear of the drought and lack of milkweed ... A nursery helped me my first time raising Monarch cats by packaging and mailing me the leaves of the common milkweed from her personal garden when my milkweed supply ran out. I was so impressed with how well the very large leaves worked as a food source, I planted common milkweed seed in a big garden tub (the plastic ones with the rope handles) to keep the plant in bounds in my small garden. I drilled holes all over the bottom of the tub and lined the inside with bubble wrap to try and keep the roots cool in the high summer heat. The first year they didn't do too much but this spring, they were the first milkweed to come up and just look at them now. The photo below was taken within the past week. This might be a plant you could consider planting as a backup food source. ... Mary Asclepias syriaca (Common Milkweed)April - 2011 From __Garden Flowers - plants

I wasn't looking for eggs/cats before last week, but I found probably about 40 or 50 when I looked. I didn't bring all of them in to raise because I just don't have enough milkweed. I replaced all of my swamp milkweed with tropical milkweed in the spring and with the horribly dry and hot weather we had for a month, the milkweed plants were just barely hanging on; as a matter of fact, I probably lost about 1/3 of them. I usually raise hundreds of Monarchs every year but won't this year because of the sparseness of milkweed and also because I really have to get some other things done. I have so much weeding to do that I honestly don't have the time to raise a lot of cats. It's a Catch 22...I planted a ton of host and nectar plants for many different kinds of butterflies over the past 5 years, but now I have so much weeding to do that the caterpillars get ignored. I wish there were some wonderful solution to my weeding problem, but I know there isn't. I spotted my first Monarch of the year on June 24 but I couldn't tell if it was a male or a female from where I was. I hope more people start seeing Monarchs soon. Cathy

I wasn't recommending you take the courses necessarily. Just pointing out that good breeders have standards. We have to be careful where we get our stuff from wild or otherwise or we can have problems. Monarchs have three (is that right Larry?) distinct populations with different or no migratory histories. Those in Florida do not migrate and have the highest levels of OE. Unknowledgeable breeders can cause problems by using this stock. Anyhow, lurk around IBBAs site for disease info, also Monarchparasite.org. Both those sites have very good disease information. I don't know of anyone who will help you for free other than the posters here. Amanda Lawrence at Mississippi State University conducts a bug pathology lab I believe but they charge you. You may be able to contact her for some free info. Check out this part of the IBBA web site. http://www.butterflybreeders.org/public/health/disease_prevention_MSU.html I don't think it is anything you are doing. It sounds more like you have a disease of some type in the batch. Start over with clean materials and eggs from a known source. As hobbiests, most of us never need to sterilize eggs. Only breeders and researchers need to do that. They have to ensure clean stock as they breed thousands of insects in close quarters. If you have plenty of healthy milkweed outside that freezes to the ground each year, you should be fine. Either let a momma come to you or order eggs from a known reputable source. Keep in mind that later in the summer OE levels do go up. If you can catch mom, you can test her to see what her levels are as well. This can give you a clue as to what is up. Other than clean cage conditions, the thing to watch out for are tachinid flies. They will lay eggs either on the caterpillar or on the leaves you feed to the caterpillar. So, wash or rinse the leaves well. Viruses get transmitted this way too. Again, being hobbiests most of us do not have too many problems with this, just occasionally. Oh, also wash your hands if you have been digging in the dirt. This is how bacterial diseases get transmitted. I have a bad habit of weeding and then handling caterpillars. It just seems to go togther. But Bt, that nice organic pesticide used on tomatoes, is isolated from soils. Good luck, Elisabeth

Bumping this down, because I found someone on Monarch Watch who will take the extra eggs. I also bought a pop-up enclosure to try rearing some extras outside. Happy butterflying