Ashley - 1 - A strong blast of water from the hose may knock them off to where birds can get to them. 2 - Spray them with the usual soap/oil/water spray (look up recipe on Google) and they should die. 3 - Also, if you see wasps around the beans, they are hunting caterpillars.

Sherry, the Polyphemus spins a white cocoon. Unlike the Luna, the Poly cocoon is quite dense. They spin a LOT of silk! Their cocoons look like tiny surgical casts. In fact, it is because of this, that the Poly's first cousin, native to China, Antheraea pernyi, was and may still be used for silk, just as the Bombyx is. The Cynthia moth is also used for silk. At one time, Cynthias were common in NE US, but have largely died off, chiefly due to habitat loss as well as parasitoids such as the tachinid fly. Susanlynne, one sureshot way to tell male from female Luna, at a glance, is color. The females are that characteristic green, while males are yellow-green. I could tell from my upstairs bedroom window, the Luna I saw, resting on a young hickory, was most definitely a male. No way could I see its body size or antennae. I hope this helps.

They're tersa sphinx moth cats, Shari, and they burrow into the ground when they're ready to pupate. If you want to finish raising them, give them a few inches of clean, bug free, dry dirt in a container - I usually just stick the water picks with the pentas and the big cats on them directly in the dirt and add more leaves in water picks as needed. When they're ready, they'll go under and emerge a few months? later or next spring. MissSherry

Follow up to last year's caterpillars... I ended up with 2 cocoons, which overwintered in a butterfly pavillion on my balcony. Both cocoons were in a birch tree, btw. I clipped the branches they were on and laid them in the pavillion, securing the pavillion so it didn't blow off the balcony. Yesterday one of them eclosed! I didn't even know it until I saw a huge moth hanging on the side of the house and realized the time was here! I ran upstairs and sure enough, there was a partially unfolded polyphemus hanging from the top of the mesh. I left it in the pavillion overnight because it wasn't fully open. This morning I found one outside the pavillion, waiting for the pretty girl to come out and "play". So I used a branch to fish her out of the enclosure and she and her new friend are basking in the sun on the deck. The other hasn't eclosed, but I'll be watching closely.