I'm raising my cats myself, Xtal.

Black swallowtail caterpillars are always a treat to predators - spiders, MW assassin bugs, wasps, predatory stink bugs, etc. I don't have that many to begin with, so I'm keeping the ones I've got away from the mob!

Sherry

Sherry, thank you ever so much. I knew something was amiss. Twice now, ALL the cats were gone within 24 hrs. 19 down to ZERO. This isn't going to happen next year. My green bulbs fennel really attracted the Black Swallowtails. Twice now, I've lost that many. I'll see if I can't bring them up on the porch with some Fennel stems. Thank you for having posted this.

My soul is grieving. I know I've lost nearly 40 BS cats. This is where I draw the line. My Fennel has seeded out. Now, it's beginning to turn yellow. Is this common. It's my first time at growing Fennel.

Thx!

Crystal

Hi Crystal,

I too, planted bulb fennel and mine is on life support. I think the herb fennel holds up better in the heat than bulb fennel. I did get a few more weeks on the fennel for the Black Swallowtail by trimming off all the dead floppy parts and trimming off the seed heads as soon as I saw them. I raised close to 40 Black Swallowtails on the bulb fennel by taking them inside. I might grow bulb fennel again because they love it but I am definitely planting herb fennel, too.

Here is a photo of my set-up for fennel and cats on the porch. Total cost about $20.

Anna

I've got bronze fennel, don't know what bulb fennel is. Mine is making a very thick 'trunk', and it looks like it's about to flower - I'll probably cut off most of the flowers when it looks like it's going to seed. I'd like some seeds, but don't need too many. I've had better luck with this bronze fennel than any fennel I've ever grown. It's in a mostly shady place, but the dill was there and couldn't tolerate the heat long ago. This bronze fennel has tolerated a very hot spell we had recently, before the rains.

Sherry

My Bulb Fennel is in FULL blazing sun. It's seeded and I'll go cut off most of those seedbeds if I can extend it's life. Next year, I'll buy both at our Master Gardener Spring Sale. Thanks for having mentioned that and showing your method of keeping the stems watered. Where'd you get your little cat house? I might put that on my list.

BTW, if I let those seeds drop, will they sprout next year?

I am growing the bulb fennel in a big pot and it only gets afternoon sun, so just 1/2 day. I think in full, all day sun it would have bit the dust long ago.

"The Caterpillar House" is an upside down collapsible dirty clothes hamper that I purchased on Amazon for $12. They are great because they collapse down to a couple of inches at the end of the season for storage. I have cleaned them with Chlorox Spray cleaner (yellow bottle) with no ill effects. I just set them on packing paper (unprinted newsprint also from Amazon) to catch the poop.

Anna

I've never heard of bulb fennel, Anna!

My fennel is making thick 'trunks', so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bulb underground, but maybe there are just roots. Anything you can tell me about bulb fennel?

The BST cats are still thriving -

Sherry

Miss Sherry, they are growing so quickly! Already earned their stripes! I figure the bulb fennel is the one you find in the produce section at the grocery store. Like this

Thanks, Iris! I'll check that out at the grocery store.

Sherry

Yep, that's what I'm growing, Iris. I thought THAT was the only type of fennel. I didn't know about herb fennel until Floral_UK explained it to me in a Houzz discussion on fennel. She said herb fennel grows in sandy conditions all over the UK but they don't have any Swallowtail butterflies that use it. The bulb fennel is harder to grow and not as heat tolerant.

Just yesterday a Black Swallowtail laid about 20 eggs on the pitiful fennel plant I'm still babying. I hope it lives long enough to feed them.

Anna

Three of the first group of black swallowtails have purged and are running around the cage - should have chrysalides in the near future!

Here's what two looked like a few days ago -

Sherry

P.S.

They're pupating now - YAY!

Fabulous Sherry!! Now let's hope they don't take 1.5 years to eclose. :)

Here is the latest on the eggs on the old tired bulb fennel.

I counted 25 cats at various instars. I actually watched a juvenile female Northern Cardinal try to eat one of the cats at the "bird poop" stage yesterday. The minute her beak closed on it, she was shaking her head side to side to throw it out. I haven't seen her back hunting in that area since.

Anna

I hope the 'bird poop' cat managed to survive!

You have more BSTs than I have, but I'm not complaining, because I'm a little worried I won't have enough food, particularly rue, to feed them all. I'll see.

Sherry

I know the feeling!!!

I decided not to bring these in because I will be traveling next month and my husband would need to feed them and release them, and that is not his thing. :) So, I hope they can manage on the tired bulb fennel.

And I still have 30 chrysalides from the first 2 batches this year that haven't eclosed. Some of these chrysalides are now 7 weeks old.

Anna

Here's the latest on the BS cats on bulb fennel.

Do you think they will eat the roots? :) Hopefully, the stalks will keep them growing until pupation time.

Anna

Guess what, many of the cats are moving off the bulb fennel this afternoon looking for a place to pupate!! :) Let's hope these don't take 6 months to eclose.

Anna

I've never seen caterpillars eat roots, Anna, but anything is possible! I'll be planting more bronze fennel next spring in the fennel/rue bed. I'm very pleased that it's holding up in the summer heat, something dill and parsley never did for me. Your cats look good - 'hope they're far enough along to pupate!

Sherry

I hope so, too. I am concerned that they are not bothered by birds while on the fennel, I don't think the birds can see them with their striped camouflage, but when leaving the plant they are very conspicuous against the brown mulch. I have seen several large cats crawling to plants near by but I cannot find a "J"ing cat anywhere. I'm wondering if the birds are picking them off once the leave the fennel.

A Brown Thrasher works that area everyday and has not bothered the cats on the fennel but may be picking them off the mulch. I haven't seen this but it only takes a nanosecond.

Anna

Yes, it could happen. Birds don't bother caterpillars here, at least as far as I know. It's the wasps, assassin bugs and predatory stink bugs that do the damage here.

Sherry

If you have a wire tomato cage and some tulle or netting I would use those to protect your beautiful cats. I lost all mine to birds two years in a row so this year have been bringing them in when they are too tiny to be of interest to birds. Good luck! I am in SW Iowa. Where are you?

Trowelgal,

I thought about doing that, too. I bought some cheesecloth to drop across the top of the bulb Fennel. In my yard, the netting would have kept the mama from being able to lay eggs on the bulb Fennel.

Because I've lost so many to the predator bugs, I'm thinking that next year, I'll start pulling off stems to bring up on the porch so I can protect them. I'd like to hope that if I can pull off all the eggs and cats that maybe the predator bugs will loose interest if there isn't anything there for them.

Have you guys ever noticed that the bag bugs hide from you whereas the good bugs never had to. When I put my hand down closer to a stem anywhere in the garden, if they move to the opposite side of the stem, they are bad. The ladybugs never had to run away.

I am in the Tampa Bay area of FL. That's a great and easy design for an outside caterpillar enclosure.

But these cats were all there on the bulb fennel for weeks feeding without any problems. They must have been very well camouflaged from the birds while on the plant. And the plant was nothing but stalks for much of the time. Maybe it was when they had to leave the plant and cross the brown mulch, the predators could see them. But with your design of outside enclosure, one could leave them on the plant until pupation time and just bring them in to pupate safely OR do they pupate on the netting and tomato cage?

Here's the only "J"ing cat out of 27 that I found.

Anna

I was suggesting to use the tomato cage and tulle or cheesecloth after the caterpillars are present. Just to protect them from the birds so they can eat the fennel in peace.

Ana I forgot to answer your last question. Yes, they like to climb any kind of netting or screen to attach to and then create the chrysalis. Mine usually find a place to cling to then make what I call a "comma" with their bodies like in your picture above. About 1 1/2 to 2 days later the chrysalis will be formed. Mine have been eclosing in 12-15 days on average. I put a piece of masking tape near them with the date the chrysalis is formed. Then I have an idea when they might be ready to eclose. My enclosure is inside so this is easy to do. I really am enjoying the whole process and will be doing several workshops to interest other gardeners and children to raise butterflies. I found a very simple enclosure made from a cardboard box on YouTube that kids could make in school science class or 4-H. I'm going to make one myself first to see how it goes.

Hi all - so I found a couple caterpillars that I think are Black Swallowtails on my Italian parsley this morning, exciting as I've never seen them before or even notice. My concern that is they are in a large container on my deck, should I move the caterpillars off the parsley and put them someplace else or just let them be? I don't know anything about raising them and am not really setup to but would like to give the little guys a chance. Thanks!

Lucky you Nicole. Idea: read the post by me written three days ago ( scroll up). If you can protect them that way they should survive.

I am always surprised how variable their coloring is. Why is that? I have some really pretty ones currently.

Nicole,

Do you think the horrible predator bugs hang out on the Italian Parsley like they do on my Bulb Fennel?

Crystal

I don’t see why they wouldn’t. I saw this on my oak yesterday.

OMG, here I was hoping that the Italian Parsley might be better than the Fennel. Poor little guy.

I don't know. As soon as I see the tiny cats I take them to my indoor structure. I do have both types of parsley but no fennel this year.

Thanks trowelgal, I'll see if I can come up with something, they seem pretty content right now. They move pretty quickly, it's been fun to watch them, although I grew the parsley for me, guess I can share.

Xtal - I haven't seen any predator bugs around the parsley but I think generally we don't have too many nasty things in my area other than yellow jackets but our weird weather has kept them in check this year.

So, how big do these caterpillars get before they are ready? My memory must be foggy from last year, but I thought these guys must be done. But they just keep on eating. I have a bunch about this size on a fennel in the backyard, there isn’t much left on it. I took a few tiny caterpillars from that one to put on a better fennel in the front, but left the big ones there.

Mine have gotten pretty large as well - I only have 2, the biggest moved from the Italian parsley to the curly parsley today. Good thing I grew a lot in the same pot!

Iris, that size will pupate by Sunday-Monday I bet. It will be leaving the fennel soon.

Anna

Anna, looks like you would win that bet! Saw this one today and several others gone (didn’t look around much). There are still some of this size eating. Hope a hornworm isn’t going to have the idea to eat this Jimsonweed anytime soon.

Iris, it does seem like they eat and eat and eat some more before they finally pupate, but congrats on your black swallowtails!

Sherry

These are some oddly colored black swallowtail caterpillars, black and white!

Sherry

Isn’t this variation in colors cool? I love it!

I just visited a friend in CA who is raising Anise Swallowtails. The caterpillars were eating herb fennel and looked exactly like EBS cats BUT the butterfly looks completely different!! Oh, and one cat pupated on the old dark grey stumps of the fennel and the chrysalis was completely BLACK and healthy. It’s amazing how they can change colors to match the surroundings. I wish I had taken a photo of the black chrysalis. EBS and Anise must be related.

Yes, Anna, I've always considered anise swallowtails to be the west coast version of our black swallowtails. Not only do they also lay eggs on and eat members of the carrot/celery family, they will also lay eggs on citrus - black swallowtails will lay eggs on rue, a member of the citrus family.

By the way, there's a black swallowtail in a cage that I think came from my first batch of black swallowtails, making it an old one. 'Wonder if it will overwinter? :)

Sherry

Here is the black chrysalis of the Anise Swallowtail I saw in CA. I've also included a photo of the pupa of the same chrysalis. I can't get over the how much the pupa looks like and Eastern Black Swallowtail and the fact that the caterpillar created a BLACK chrysalis to hide amongst the old grey stumps of an herb fennel.

I would have never thought these 2 butterflies closely related from looking at just the fly. Here are photos of the Anise Swallowtail from the web.

Nature is AMAZING!!
Anna

Sherry,

I released a Black Swallowtail this morning that has been in the chrysalis 9 weeks and 3 days.

I have 18 more Black Swallowtail chrysalides from either 8 June or 23 June. I have the feeling I'm going to be waiting some time for all of these to all eclose!! ;-)

Anna

Yes, you very well could be waiting a while, Anna - or you may release the rest of them tomorrow. 'Can't figure out black swallowtails!

That anise swallowtail chrysalis is amazing! Even though it's black, it's shiny, not sooty black, so it looks healthy, not dead.

Congrats on today's black swallowtail. I released 4 gulf frits today, always a pleasure! I also saw a male gulf frit courting a female, dancing over her, maybe spraying her with his 'perfume' while she was on the ground. I'm sure they soon mated. This is the kind of thing I saw regularly when I lived in the country, so it's good to see nature in action once again!

Sherry

Nice pic, Sherry! I think I have the same type of fennel that you have. It's not totally bronze but there is some bronze on parts of the plant. It has been coming up every year for at least the past five years. I love the smell of it, and we have black swallowtails lay on it here. They've laid/ovisposited on that this year and on the parsley and the rue. I had taken out the rue a few years ago because I was allergic to it, but then I had some rue plants come up later and somehow I couldn't bring myself to rip them out. So now I have rue again. Now my daughter gets cats off the rue and brings in rue cuttings for the BST and GST cats so I don't have to touch it. She has mostly taken over doing almost all of the butterfly raising.

I'm still confused about what kind of fennel this is at our place but I call it bronze fennel. All I know is that if I don't deadhead it each year, I would end up with lots of fennel plants coming up the following spring. I have mine in pretty much shade and that seems to work well to keep it from konking out earlier than I want it to. I like the plant but because the rue has more substantial foliage than the fennel, we/she usually end up raising the blacks on the rue.

I wanted to raise the giants on the wafer ash trees that I planted for them here, but that doesn't last long because those darn potato leaf hoppers decimate the leaves even before the middle of summer. They're unusable now for the past couple of months because of those pests. So the giants are raised on the rue, but it's no problem for me since DD raises them. The giants prefer to lay their eggs on the wafer ash though, so maybe it would be okay to raise them on it, I don't know. Those trees are really unsightly though.

I wish you much success at your new place. It looks like you don't need me to say that though. ;-)

Cathy

Today the first BST ever to come near. Female, so, I bought fennel (not bulb type). Question about growing it : I read that it does not transplant well, therefore I planted the root-bound gallon pot shape undisturbed into a large pot. Is it more likely that the outer roots will grow into the surrounding medium, or that they will remain as though they were confined?

No more sightings. No eggs.

------------

Low outer shoots and their leaves have been yellowing. I remove these shoots, thinking that caterpillars do not eat yellow leaves -- am I wrong about that?

Request comments about your experiences with Zizia, as to growing and to BST food.