Oh, Kippy! You are SO generous! Thank you (NOT)! LOL! You're very welcome to collect the ones which have grown since the last rain several months ago from just down from the house here. They should make marvelous holiday decorations with sufficient gold spray paint! I'm glad you're more relaxed, Ingrid. I know the feeling, except for watching for the little green shoots starting to creep from under the soil... If you have that nasty invader in the shadier areas of your garden, that means there is water there. It grows where there is water, from Mexico to Canada. It CAN be eradicated,but it does demand herbicides. If you dig the tubers and leave them in the direct sun, they shrivel and die (vampires!), and I have done that with literally several hundred over the years. I've unearthed quite a few the size of a V-8 American automobile engine and they shriveled and dried up once exposed to the elements. Others have been "dispatched" with buckets of "the devil's brew" herbicide we won't mention, with the tendrils wrapped around inside them so they sucked it up like wicks. It didn't take long and they NEVER reemerged! Kim

Gywnne that would be really neat, maybe they could be like Monarchs and dissapear in the Winter and come back in the Summer. I hope a few mate and leave me some presents on my Passionvines, now that would be neat. Jean I use Shady Oak Butterfly Farm in Fl. They have the best Nectar and Host plants and a great healthy selection of butterflies. Visit the link below. I have ordered quite a few times from them and I am getting ready to do it again soon. Aggie Here is a link that might be useful: Shady Oak Butterfly farm

thanks everyone!! The one that came out today flew off. The sun came out for about 20 minutes and I put her in the sun. I took the screen off the plastic tote and off she went. Next 3 days, rain and cooler...hope the other 2 don't come out for a few days. Elisabeth, you made me feel better that you think the butterflies are made for the cooler weather...and I would never let them out in a downpour. I also worry that there is not much food around. I put hummingbird sugar water on the butterfly bush lol the lil yellow BF like it so hopefully a hungry monarch will eat it too.

Susan, As always my thoughts are my opinions based on many years of actually doing, not just accepting what others say. So they are only FWIW to be taken as a person chooses to take them. IMO common logic dictates that like with most infestation, disease or infection, the level they intrude an individual at can vary widely from minor to massive. That is commonly proved out with OE in Danaidae. If a larvae makes it through complete metamorphosis to an imago that can eclose and form OK, even if OE is present it was a relatively minor infestation in that individual. The opposite being if a larva at any instar, pupa or adult that has OE dies without getting through complete metamorphosis, that individual was obviously infested at a much higher level. Unfortuanately no matter at what level (with OE especially), failure to destroy any sick livestock whether it be OE, another parasatoid, viral or bacterial infection in most cases will promote the spread of any of any of them to other individuals. OE is the prominent one that will carry on to generation after generation beyond a given brood, and nothing but complete elimination of any brood within your control that might be infected with it will help slow it down in a colony. Why in my opinion when it comes to livestock even suspected of possibly having OE it's not worth taking any chances with them "for the good of the species as a whole". For those of use who did/do field work with Lepidoptera, that includes wild Danaidae livestock found or adults netted that show any possibilty of hosting OE. NOTE: Even if you have a very strictly controlled gardening and rearing rigime (which I doubt any of you have), you won't eliminate all of any OE present. So don't go slap happy destroying everything in sight. Instead be analytical and logical, and then decide what is reasonable for your own circumstances. Yes, livestock can have OE and not show any of the so called "visible" signs of it, which IMO are not proof positive of OE anyway and can be from other causes. In part why on my OE thread I offered some habit and condition factors that could also suggest OE is present as well even though they also do not prove OE and can also be from other causes. Bottom line, to prove OE is NOT present in an individual for certain takes a microscope or loupe. And in almost all cases if a larvae it will have to be euthanized to test with any certainty. A possibility to check for OE in pupa is to test the purge of the last instar larva for OE, but unforunately that is not 100%. I'm a lot more scientific in my appraoch to Lepidoptera than all of the folks here, so I don't accept things at face value. I am also skeptical of data from other sources that are not proven to me. The Internet and publications commonly breed misinformation about everything, including Lepidoptera, that is passed on by ACE's who probably got it from another one. So it's prudent not to trust every thing you read on the Internet or in books if it's not from a source you trust. Larry