Bake Monarch, then release

I live in northern Michigan and we are having a very cool "summer", ie. when I got off work at 7:30 AM the temp was 50F, that's 1 degree above the 40's! I had kept a monarch in the enclosure last night as it was getting too late to let him out, especially in the cool 50's. At noon today I pulled several chrysalis out of the enclosure and set them directly in the sun while I cleaned. Within 2 minutes of the sun and heat hitting them, they were "born". Whoa. All this time I've kept the cages on a covered porch, to keep them out of the rain. So today, everybody got dragged out into the sun, cats and chrysalis. The ones that hatched today were 15-16 days in the chrysalis stage. So for those of you in cool temps, if possible, get those little guys some sun when you see it.

8 healthy monarch butterflies so far, 61 to go. If it weren't for this forum, I wouldn't have known how to rescue these delightful creatures. I planted a butterfly garden several years ago and wondered why I never saw 1 monarch make it from cat to butterfly. So thank you to one and all for your love of nature and your contributions to this forum.

How did you attach them to the stakes?

Hi Datura,

I learned how to do it on this site. Wait a couple days until the case hardens and then loop a bit of dental floss (tacky kind if the cremaster is long enough... I've also used thread with small cremasters) around the black cremaster and pull a snug knot. Scrape around the white sticky threads, using a toothpick or long fingernails if you have them. Once you have a few threads the entire bit of white stickum will peel off and then you can tie your chrysalis to a stick. I used garden stakes but I've found that they can be a bit slippery and difficult to hold onto, so I've also threaded willow wands through to give them something else to grasp while hanging and drying. The sides of my pavilion (fine mesh) also work well for gripping.

Thanks, good to know. I don't have any yet but the milkweed is waiting.
Peg