I would spray one or more of my three favorite liquid organic protein sources. These include in order, milk, seaweed, and garlic juice. Milk is the easiest to find, seaweed is usually easy to find, and garlic juice usually has to be made. You make garlic juice by putting a pound of garlic in 32 ounces of water into a blender. Grind it to pulp and strain off the pulp for a neighborhood Italian dinner. Spray the juice on the plant. Dilute milk and seaweed at 2-3 ounces per gallon of water and spray. These materials work by feeding the microbes that live on the outside of the plant. These well fed microbes both protect the plant by themselves, but they also seem to stimulate the natural defense mechanisms of the plants to protect themselves. You also might sprinkle a handful of your favorite organic fertilizer under each plant. If you don't have anything very handy, you can use dog or cat food. Wet it so that the chunks melt into the soil.

Thanks Mersiepoo! I looked for images of mosquito larva and that's what they seem to be. Yuck! But then I looked for images of mosquito eggs and they look nothing like what I found on my lily. I'm quite sure those were goldfish eggs on the lily after looking at pictures of them online. But they never hatched. It could be that they weren't viable, or moving them disturbed them and killed them? Dunno. I put them in clean dechlorinated water, but still. I should have put them indoors to keep the temperatures stable. I actually have two goldfish and I don't know what their sexes are. I suppose there's a 30% chance I could have gotten a male and female. Their chasing behavior seems to indicate this. I will do some more research to see if goldfishes can change their sex. I know this is more common in swordfishes and platys. Too bad I've rebuilt the pond so any eggs that could have been good would have been lost. I wonder if they mate more than once a Spring?

I'm glad you're still raising cats, Dan! There are a good many moths whose caterpillars are beautiful, while the adult moths are plain brown things, roper. Some of the slug caterpillars, like the stinging rose cats, are quite beautiful - the adults aren't. Here's a picture I made several years ago of a dagger moth cat that I thought was quite fetching - The little pipevine swallowtail caterpillars are growly rapidly, and I released my first adult PVS from the second batch of 2014 today, a female. This will be my third batch! We've had a lot of rain lately, so maybe the pipevines will be able to keep up. Sherry

I'm betting that you will be finding Monarchs consistently soon. We have been aware of OE on our Monarchs for some time now in Florida, but we still have plenty of healthy ones emerge and do well. I'm sure you know that you will be finding lots of little milkweed plants once the ones you have start to throw out seeds. It's always painful to see the caterpillars we have worked so hard to grow die by various means. For me, the worst is seeing them eaten by wasps. I think we have to be ready to accept the fact that many eggs will disappear and many caterpillars will be eaten or come out deformed. I think all the advice given above is excellent. We do what we can. The only cats I try to raise are those of the Eastern Black Swallowtail. I can see the eggs and cats easily on the fennel and notice when they disappear. Just last week I was watching six of them grow pretty large and then one day later they were all gone. Birds and wasps find them and then just keep coming back. I now have six in a cage that are doing well--somewhat surprising since I've not been very good at helping them in years past. We'll see... Keep us posted, Rhonda. Good luck with your new job. They will be getting a tigress.