I'm running my legs off feeding about 60 pipevine swallowtail cats in three cages - they're nearly all in the late instars, so I can't WAIT until they all start a simultaneous purge! :( If you've ever raised PVS cats and know what that looks and smells like, you know what I mean! I'm glad that I've got so many, though, because most of these will probably overwinter.
I'm still raising a few gulf frits - most are raising themselves outside - plus about ?15 buckeyes, one red-spotted purple, and one pawpaw sphinx cat that I just found today.
For overwintering chrysalides and cocoons, I've got one tiger swallowtail, luna moths, io moths, one regal moth, two zebra swallowtails, and two giant swallowtails.
I've been seeing palamedes swallowtails flying around lately, and usually I find late season cats on redbays that I raise and overwinter. I'll be looking for some of them.
All the buckeyes that I've raised in September and October have emerged before winter - I've never overwintered any.
Even though it's been something of a chore to raise all these pipevine swallowtails, they're my very faves, so it's worth it!
Sherry

I have 4 BSTs left. They are assuming the position to pupate. Then it'll be a long, quite winter :(

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I have 10 Monarch cats. My milkweed plants are bare, so I have been going down to a patch on the bike path at the end of my street and getting cuttings. I'm sure anyone that witnessed me doing this was wondering why I wanted stems of ratty looking plants ;)

I have 7 or 8 cecropias but I have those only because of egg refrigeration experiments I am doing.

I'm guessing I have 75-150 2nd brood polyphemus cats left. I'm taking in 5-7 cocoons everyday but I still have a bunch of rearing sleeves out with more cats plus 3 aquariums of cats inside. Quite a few are still 3rd/4th instar. The leaves are quickly turning so I'm not holding my breath that I will continue to have food. For the first time, I tried to raise some on Eastern white pine so I could be assured of food in October but none of those made it past 2nd instar. I don't remember anybody on here raising polys on pine but it is listed as a hostplant so I figured I'd give it a shot. My imperials sure loved it.

I have one Monarch chrysalis left. I was at a local elementary school yesterday teaching about caterpillars. The class still has some monarch cats that look to be 3rd or 4th instar. I figure the teacher will need lots of luck finding food since the only milkweed leaves I see anywhere around here are the ones on my swamp milkweed. The common milkweed is just stalks with pods.

It was a great year for monarchs but pretty lousy for other butterflies. I did not see a single swallowtail on my property besides the 2008 BST I let go. I saw maybe two RSPs. Cabbages are still out in force, providing food for my son's praying mantis.

KC

The last hand-reared monarch emerged and flew off on Monday, September 14. It was a healthy male. We still have plenty of milkweed, but our weather is beginning to feel like fall, so any monarchs around here will be on their way south, not thinking of mating and laying eggs. Here in Madison, Wisconsin, the monarchs seemed pretty scarce this summer. We did get some eggs in our yard, but we have over 20 milkweed, so it takes quite a few host plants to draw them in. This year, I would see monarchs in our neighborhood now and then, as I walked along Lake Monona during the month of July. In a good year, I will see monarchs every time I go for a walk, without fail. I was able to raise & release 10.

I have ONE last BST, but he doesn't seem to compelled to hatch.

I spied another gulf frit cat on my passionvine last night, so they are still coming along :)

Susan, do you still have some false nettle?

Lisa

Great thread!

I have pipevines swallowtails that just hatched today. Yikes! I am going to have to harvest as much pipevine as I can and keep it in the fridge. Our frost date is only a couple weeks away. They do this every year.

We are closing the house next Monday, so I will take home whatever is left. My egg laying experiment (well, really the Black Swallowtail's egg laying experiment) produced 62 eggs. So, we have lot's of progeny from that. So, I will be taking home a lot of those. Most of them look ready to pupate but some were still tiny.

I have two monarch chrysalises that better hurry up.

Lot's of stuff to overwinter...

Cheers,
Elisabeth

Hi, I live close to San Bernardino and the weather has been very warm 100 plus and I have sooooooooo many Gulf Frit. I swore to my self I would not buy any more passion flower plants but I have so many babies and boy do they eat. I really don`t know how many will winter over , I lost so many to that little fly or some kind of disease where the chrysalis turned black. I so wish I could raise another type next spring, anyone have any ideas? Also it would be nice to send some out but I have no idea how to do that? Patty

Susan, It looks like you have a variety of cats left! That's great that you've gotten to raise so many. Cats I have yet are;
Monarchs (only about 5 or 6 and they're pretty big), but I still have well over 50 pupas. I hope they hurry up!

Giant Swallowtails (down to 6 cats now out of the 56 eggs from 8 just the other day)

Wild Indigo Duskywings

Some other kind of cat (don't know how many) that I don't know what it is. Whatever it is, I hope it's like the WID and also eats Lupinus perennis since I have so little Baptisia australis to feed any cats.

Overwintering pupa (some anyway) I have are just the Pipevine Swallowtails. We've released 20 so far, so there should be 58 to go.

I know my list of cats I have yet isn't very long like yours, but I'll take what I can get. :)

I have no idea how many Wild Indigo Duskywings there are; I can tell by looking at the eggs (shells) that they all hatched. I can see two different kinds of cats, and I have no idea what the one kind is. I guess the light green colored one is the WID, but I haven't a clue what the light peach ones are). Both the WIDs and the unknowns are so tiny that I'd never be able to get a decent picture of them. Maybe once they're bigger I can if I haven't figured it out by then. Who knows, maybe they might just be some moth. I've never raised any moths. If I ever do, I'd like to try raising a few of the giant silkmoths.

So none of your WIDs hatched yet? Good luck with them!
I'm enjoying reading this thread and seeing what other people have yet.

Cathy

Uh oh...of the 4 BSTs I have...one is missing. None of the others could get through the wire mesh top I have over the 10 gallon fish tank they are in. The other three have pupated. So hopefully the escapee is somewhere in his chrysalis. I guess I'll find out if/when I have a BST flying around the room in about two weeks :)

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I have 5 Spicebush Swallowtail cats that are getting the munchies and therefore are likely to pupate soon. They'll be overwintering I think.

One monarch cat left; 25 chrysalises, and 12 adults that need releasing later today.

3 Question Mark cats and 32 chrysalises that I expect will eclose in a week.

And an unknown number of Silvery Checkerspots that are sleeved in for the winter.

Jeff

Wow, this turned out to be a truly interesting thread.
Lisa, have tons of Fa;se Nettle with lots of seed, Let's dig up some in pots and supplement with a vast seeding so you'll have plenty next year. Sound good? Do you have Elm or Hackberry trees? QMs, HEs and TEs are fun to raise also. Have you ever gotten GSTs on your Rue?

MissSherry, the diversity in leps that you raise always amazes me.

My favorite cat right now is the Cloudless Sulphur. They are just gorgeous!

Still going full speed ahead here in Central Florida.

Released a Queen Monarch, 2 Gulf Frits, and a Cloudless Sulfur this morning out into the garden.

Currently I've got 30 Monarch's 1st and 2nd instars, 1 Giant Swallowtail, 40 Zebra Longwings, and 5 Queen Monarchs. I'm letting the GoldRim Swallowtails and Gulf Frits do their thing naturally as they were getting hard to keep up with there are so many.

Can't wait for things to start to cool down here as we are still in the low 90's most every day right now.

Michael

I found my escapee BST caterpillar. He decided my tank wasn't good enough I guess and made his chrysalis on a wicker shelf I have next to it. At least he is safe and sound.

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Hummm..... I have just a few cats to rear.....
1. IO moth caterpillar, found on Pin Oak
2. Spice bush swallowtail, AKA Mr. Cutie. I am waiting for him to hatch.
3. Mourning cloaks ( 3 pupae)( 10 larvae)I love mourning cloaks.
4. Mystery eggs, I found them on my Datura, I am not sure of the species though, The eggs are relatively small, yellow to cream colored and have the stripes going down the sides that you see on monarch eggs. hummm....maybe its a hair streak egg.
5. Tiger swallowtail eggs. Found two on tulip poplar and the other two on my sweet bay.
6.4 first instar Silver spotted skipper larvae found on my Chinese wisteria.
6. last but not least cloudless sulphur larvae and one chrysalis. I love doing experiments with the cloudless sulphur chrysalis b/c of the way there pupae makes the lovely pink or green chrysalis, I luv changing the back ground to see what color chrysalis they may make.

I have 10 monarch chrysalids that pupated on 09/15, 09/16 & 09/18. Only 1 or 2 are showing signs of darkening. I have 3 BST cats indoors, one of which just hatched on the 24th that the egg was laid on my dahlia. I also have about 7 BST cats in my cage, but am not hopeful of any of them making it since I've had major wasp issues. I found one with it's head facing down, so I knew something was wrong; sure enough it was a goner; looks like black death :( Second one this week...

OMdog! The Monarchs are going nuts here in my yard. I thought, as of two days ago, that I was about done. NOT! I began finding more eggs yesterday morning. So, I'm doing the Monarch thing, GSTs, and Gulf Fritillaries. :)

Well we are just getting on a roll here, as the heat is down (relatively) and rain may be letting up. So hope to see much more egg-laying activity soon! Right now just have a couple of GF and BST chrysalides, plus a couple of GF and monarch cats.

Oh and found three GST eggs and one cat today. Have had NO luck raising those guys so far so we will see.
Oh yeah and a bunch of poly(damas ST) cats in various sizes/stages, and poly pupae too. (There are always so many of them sometimes I forget about them.)

Susan....THANK YOU!! That would be great.

I can stop by sometime this week. Do you have time on Tuesday evening?

Lisa

Sounds good! Will get to diggin' and may have some seeds to share with you as well, if you'd like.

My WID eggs hatched. At first., the very, very, very tiny cats are yellow, and turn green as they consume food. I don't notice them eating the eggshell either, but rather just leaving it alone and moving to edge of leaf to feed. These guys are sooooooo tiny! I hope they make it. I only have about 10.

Susan

Had an early frost hit last week. I know we were in the low 30s but I don't know exactly how low.

The frost culled my outside polys. The big guys all seem to have made it but the smaller guys took a hit. My area is seeing highs in the mid 60s and lows in the low 40s which does not make for very active polys. Very little frass production. I figure I really need a couple days in the high 70s to have much hope of seeing cocoons out of this bunch.

The cold weather is not helping my inside polys either. Getting tougher and tougher to find decent sweetgum and Norway maple leaves.

KC

There are still gulf frits outside on what's left of the passionvines, but I released my last gulf frit adult the other day, and I'm not raising any more inside.
I'm raising a few pipevine swallowtails. They're the last from the big group I raised that have mostly all pupated - I've got so many chrysalides!! Most are brown, but a few are green - I can't remember overwintering any green ones, so those will probably emerge soon, with most of the brown ones overwintering. I'm thinking I'm going to leave half of them outside and put half in my unheated guest room when winter comes and see how that turns out. Every year, some of my overwintering chrysalides emerge in January or February, which is too soon, because the pipevines don't make new growth until early March, as I recall. Maybe this is because my unheated guest room is still too warm.
I've got one buckeye cat left, but it's late instar, so it should be emerging soon. There are some sulphurs outside on the cassias, but I'm leaving them there.
A lot of leaves have already fallen off deciduous trees, even though it's been hot lately - it's 91 degrees right now!
I've ordered 5 Asclepias curassavica plants from Almost Eden - they had a sale - that are supposed to arrive by Friday. I plan to overwinter these plants, so that I can (hopefully) have something for egg-laying for any monarchs that come through here in early spring. I see some every year at that time, and I never have any MW for them. Even if only males pass through, all the butterflies love to nectar on the flowers.
Sherry

I have 6 small PVST cats & several batches of eggs to see if they hatch. I had gone out of town to Colorado last week so I put all the cats I was raising outside...I only found 5 when I returned Sunday & all are in the process of pupating. I collected 12 late instar monarch cats & will see how they do...last year I raised a dozen in Oct too. Haven't seen any BSTs or GSTs lately...I have several crysalids left but don't know if they are viable...we'll see. I left my containers on the back porch open in case any eclosed while I was gone. I have never brought in Cloudless Sulphurs...I only have one host plant right now(Partridge Pea) & had several cats on it a few weeks ago...I just saw a small cat on it today. Next year, I'm planning to grow more host plants so will have more of a variety of cats. I still have GF cats on my blue passionvine outside. They are the most numerous BF I have in my yard during the summer.
I just saw a female monarch that must have just eclosed out in my wild flower area...she was a little sluggish flying & her wings are in perfect condition...hope she finds a mate so I can have more cats before November like last year!

Polys, polys, polys - can not keep up with them! Have to visit the extension butterfly garden to cut pipevine every couple of days. (thankfully they are happy to let me!) Invariably the cuttings have a number of eggs or tiny cats on them too, a never ending cycle. And the plants I have at home grow just enough to attract more eggs then they're eaten again!!
Monarchs - bunch of cats eating ALL the MW. Hope my giant milkweed does some fast growing!! The scrawny scarlet mw does not go far.
Gulf Frits - they are really starting to leave lots of eggs right now, have a number of baby cats too. And they're often nice enough to fly into the screen enclosure with me to lay eggs on my plants so I don't have to go around the yard collecting them!
Zebra Longwing - have some teeny baby cats and a few eggs.
GST - Have a dozen or so little to medium cats and almost the same number of eggs, they've been very active lately. I bet there are lots of eggs up high in all the citrus trees around, but the ones I've got will keep me busy.
BST - A few chrysalides, have not had any new eggs in several weeks. I'm keeping the rue away from the GSTs though so I'm ready if they come around!

Oh, to be as lucky as some of you in those warmer zones ;)
I still have 5 BST cats in my cage (their growth has slowed down drastically) and 2 BST cats inside. I managed to smoosh the baby whose egg was laid on my dahlia (I'm getting very careless with my babies, and I blame it on my poor eyesight at 45!). At least we haven't frosted yet, but I should clean up my remaining parsley's and get them inside just in case...

I have a couple Giant Swallowtails still in chrysalis but I wonder if they won't overwinter. New eggs on Wild LIme aren't hatching.

Got Monarchs laying on the milkweed but I haven't brought any in as of yet.

Polys are still everywhere. They have eaten my vine, which is all over my yard, down twice this season. I have new growth with eggs all over it and babies everywhere. DH said I had at least 24+ flying in mass outside this morning.

Zebra Longwings finally showed up a few weeks ago, not in mass but just a female who laid me some eggs. Released those and now I have a dozen more in 2nd instar. Saw one laying more eggs this morning. I really missed having them around all summer. I definitely have to get more Maypops next year and remove the Incense. They just don't seem to do well on it for food.

Gulf Frits are also laying on the Incense and seem to do okay on it. Will leave some in the sun for them for next year.

Haven't found any viable eggs on the Spicebush recently. Nor any Eastern Blacks. Sulphurs have been few this summer. The cardinals are getting the cats off the Candlestick Cassia.

My hummingbird is still here. Hope he spends the winter with me.

I have one Monarch chrysalis outside. It's been hanging for almost 2 weeks. I can see clearly in the sunlight through the chrysalis that it's developed halfway down since it's black on top half.

Assuming it's slowed down development because of decreasing day length and will go into diapause for me to over winter chrysalis in attached unheated garage.

Am I correct and should I bring it inside before we get a first frost or let it be until first frost predicted and then bring it inside garage for winter?

Do Monarch chrysalids over winter when they're only half way done morphing?

I thought chrysalids ready to over winter would be brown.

I'd sure appreciate it if you guys could advise me on this last Monarch. :)

The tropical milkweed I started indoors under lights last winter and planted in huge storage containers I got from recycling center worked out beautifully for me...and Monarchs. They grew very well, flowers are gorgeous and I was able to catch enough sun on this shady property to avoid foliage decline. Only problem was slugs and earwigs were horrible this year. Dumb me lined containers with fine screen mesh without surmising the miserable defoliators would just climb up sides of containers.

I've got lots of it left but no Monarchs. I've got enough seed to last a lifetime from swamp, tuberosa and tropical milkweed.

Thinking of putting flier in neighborhood mailboxes offering to plant milkweed on anyone's property who wants it. When I'm tending little garden at mailbox neighbors outside walking complain about not seeing any butterflies, especially Monarchs. I figure if I start the plants for them and plant them there should be a good patch of milkweed all over the neighborhood. I'm trying to figure out a nectar source to help draw in butterflies to go with the milkweed I plant for neighbors but can't think of anything deer/rabbit resistant that they wouldn't have to grow on decks or behind fencing like I do. Guess I shouldn't worry about that since I keep reading that Monarchs don't care if there are flowers or not for ovipositing purposes.

Thanks in advance for advice you can give on this last Monarch chrysalis that seems stalled. I've checked it carefully without my glasses so I can see if there are any holes in it but there aren't.

Leslie

Monarchs, Monarchs, Monarchs! Just got in from collecting a bunch of eggs. Found two 1st instars as well.

Got a few Giant Swallowtails, Cabbage Whites, and Gulf Fritillaries as well.

I can't believe the MONARCHs this year...weird. ;P I'm not complaining, though.