Carol, have seen the critter a billion times but never (knowingly) the cocoon. Very interesting, thanx. hortster

But I know exactly how you feel because a number of years ago I lost almost every Anise Swallowtail butterfly cat to a parasite that would kill the cat usually within the first or second instar, probably the second, in the same way. I would watch the cat feed normally for a while and then it would stop eating and just sit motionless for days and then one day it would be still sitting on the stem but looking sort of shrivelled up and there nearby would be a tiny beige cocoon. It would not have bothered me so much had it not taken all but one cat over an entire season. I almost gave up on the butterfly stuff after that season. Unfortunately, I live in a somewhat agricultural environment so there is not much one can do if people decide to import preditory insects to control what they consider pests. The worst part of the experience was that the cats had come from a number of places in my area and had nevertheless managed to come in contact with the same parasites. For awhile I feared that the Anise Swallowtails might never survive or that the other butterflies would be killed off also. Thank God I was wrong. I have not had the problem since. I don't know what to say beyond that except that I am not capable of being neutral about the whole food chain thing. It is what it is. Murray

>It seems, they put a lot of trouble coating the cocoons so they can be shipped and stored It certainly does. It is just an indication that there are a lot of people out there who have too much disposable income and would prefer to give their money away. I'd love to have that customer mailing list. At least the farmers are making some income from this. I don't know for how long though. I agree that adding OM would definitely be the better method :) >lol! remember, they're "encapsulated" so she probably >won't guess what's inside those pebble-looking thingies ;D She'd probably surmise that it was worm related since I have a worm scraps container in the fridge, otherwise she might put them in a boullion soup.

Thanks to all who posted regarding the boiling of water and pouring over soil to sterilize. After nearly a month, none of my Tomato seeds germinated. The same can be said for Chinensis/tea tree seeds. But the Melon seeds and Cucumber seeds all seemed to germinate and are doing fine? Someone asked why would you sterilize the soil? In my case, my existing soil throughout yard is incredibly rich, but has become infected with Stinging Nettle and a variety of other weed seeds. I always use a portion of this soil to add in with Peat Moss and sand and steer manure-which I also treat with steaming. For those of you who haven't a clue why I would treat the steer manure, your lack of knowledge on treatment of cows is disparaging, at best. Those chemicals do come out in their feces though! Anyway, no matter the answers given, none of my small seeds germinated, so it appears I must simply add more soil and seeds and then pluck out the wild stuff that comes up with it-hopefully it won't crowd out the good seeds to quickly!