And the Season Begins-

The 2018 season has started off stronger than past seasons, which I hope is a good indication of more monarchs in the area. I had one monarch egg last June when usually I don’t see any until later in July. As has been the case in my previous two seasons. I retrieved 21 eggs from milkweed in my backyard about a week ago.  I believe they were all laid by the same butterfly since I found them over a period of three days and they all hatched within two days of each other. Today I have 18 caterpillars at their second instar stage, moving into three as half of them are pretty quiet today. Two eggs did not hatch and I accidentally squished one  😬

This week has been quite calm with my little cats, pulling a leaf a day off one of my tropical milkweed plants for them. I think one day I had to pull two. I wrap the stems of the leaves with a piece of paper toweling to help keep them moist and to slow down the wilting process. I change their container every other day right now since being so small, they do not accumulate much frass (monarch droppings). They will need daily bleached containers very soon. They grow that fast!

The monarch egg is literally smaller than a pin head. My eggs hatched on about the fourth day of being laid. Once they hatch, their first meal is the remainder of their egg. During the first of five instars, they will only reach 2-6mm in length. Their second instar, which is where they are today, they will grow between 6-9mm long. That is still pretty tiny!

My common and swamp milkweeds are getting ready to bloom and some of my nectar flowers popped some blooms out this week. I’m hoping to see another round of eggs soon. It has been cooler this past week with no monarch siting of any kind. We don’t see many monarchs in my area to begin with so I’m crossing my fingers for another female to find my yard.

On another note, I became a Citizen Scientist for Monarch Joint Venture last weekend. Check out what that is and what I will be doing this season for them on my IMMP (Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program page.

Till next week-