Sales from this website are PayPal verified and backed by Network Solutions:
 |
This year we are mainly collecting eggs. When we find an egg, we pick the leaf and place it in Shane’s bug house. Once home, we put each egg with the leaf in it’s own container with a damp paper towel (the humidity helps preserve the leaf). If the leaf is wilted, we may mist one side lightly. As soon as the egg hatches, we carefully use a toothpick to transfer the caterpillar to a bleached milkweed leaf and fresh towel. The bleached milkweed and paper towel are changed as often as necessary. The container is cleaned with 20% bleach and the milkweed is soaked in 10% bleach for 20 min. in order to kill any Oe and then rinsed with plain water. I keep the bleached milkweed in a ziplock bag in the frig until needed. It lasts almost a week. Sometimes I also put it in a vase in the dining room.
We are trying to keep each monarch in the same container from the time of collection to the time it ecloses to also limit the exposure to disease and parasites. The containers we have chosen to use this year are 9"x7"x7" as shown in the photo on the right. The lids open easily so the chrysalises can be checked without being disturbed too much. In August we started to keep 2-3 monarchs of the same stage/collection area because we ran out of containers. Each container is labeled with the number we assign to the monarch and the stage at which we collected the monarch. As it changes to a new stage, I mark this on the label. When it pupates, we mark the expected eclosure date on the label.
We are keeping the Monarch Nursery in our guestroom (appropriate, huh?) so that they are away from children and our cats. The room stays around 75-80°F and 60-65% humidity. There is no direct air conditioning or sun light in the room. Note that we ran out of the box containers and used a white container we got from take-out food. There is not enough room in the take-out container for the monarch to eclose, so it will be given a larger container when it reaches 5th instar. The one container has a chrysalis that is attached to the side of the container, so we put container on end so it hangs better.
Before each butterfly is released, we are checking it for Oe using a Celestron 44340 microscope. We are using the tape method as shown on the Testing page of the Monarch Parasite website. I afix the monarch tape print to a glass slide.
I keep all of our data on spreadsheets. As each monarch is released or dies (a summary of these results is shown at the bottom of this page), I enter the data on the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project (MLMP) website, which is one of a handful of monitoring projects that monarch enthusiasts can be involved in to aid research.
 |
Size: ½ acre. Type: suburban gardens and lawn. I have been nursing along a few common milkweed plants and we have 8 tropical milkweed plants, which are annuals in our area. The monarchs seem to prefer the tropical milkweed. We use our yard to release all the butterflies we raise. We have collected all of the live monarchs we have found here because there is not enough milkweed to sustain them to adulthood. I have plans to plant a bunch of milkweed next year and have collected seed locally for this. I also ordered some tropical milkweed seed and am collecting some from my gardens to start early indoors next year. The final monitoring for this site was 9/2/08. Click here to view the data for this site on the MLMP website. |
Catch and release results for this site:
| Males | Females | Oe | Healthy | Tagged |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
1st siting: I was on a mountain bike ride at Valley Forge and spotted our 1st butterfly on June 2nd along the trail.
This is a summary of our monitoring data, which started June 15th. Detailed data has been submitted to the MLMP website.
| Week | # of plants checked | Adults | Eggs | 1st Instar | 2nd Instar | 3rd Instar | 4th Instar | 5th Instar | Dead Monarchs: All Stages |
| 1 | 132 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 231 | 5 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | 104 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | 89 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 134 | 4 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | 96 | 2 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | 84 | 0 | 10 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | 78 | 1 | 21 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | 31 | 1 | 13 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 10 | 49 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 11 | 91 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 12 | 140 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 1259 | 20 | 98 | 28 | 11 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 7 |
Monarchs are tagged starting in August, when the golden rod blooms. Apparently, the changes in temperature cause changes in their body structure and the ones born at the end of the summer are the ones that will migrate south. We used LLW400-402, LLW404-419 and LLW425-434. None of these were reported as found.
| Reared and Released: Total Tagged | Catch and Release: Total Tagged |
Total Tagged |
| 28 | 1 | 29 |
This is a summary of the results of the monarchs we have raised. The table below shows the stages our monarchs were collected at:
| Eggs | 1st Instar | 2nd Instar | 3rd Instar | 4th Instar | 5th Instar | Total |
| 45 | 12 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 75 |
Last year we had a high mortality rate, so this year we kept records on it. In some cases I made prints of the leaves (using the tape method as with the butterflies) I found the monarchs on and if Oe was detected, it is presumed to be the cause of the death of the monarch (since I cannot detect Oe on the monarch itself until it has become a chrysalis). Thus, Unknown Disease is probably Oe, but I cannot prove it using my microscope.
| Mortality: Eggs | Mortality: Larvae | Mortality: Pupating Larvae | Mortality: Chrysalis | Mortality: Adult | Healthy Adults Released |
| 2 | 15 | 12 | 5 | 5 | 36 |
| Mortality: Adult Males | Mortality: Adult Females | Healthy Males | Healthy Females |
| 3 | 2 | 15 | 21 |
| Mortality: Escaped Container | Mortality: Accidental | Mortality: Oe | Mortality: Wasp | Mortality: Fly | Mortality: Unknown Disease, Parasite, etc. |
| 2 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 20 |