I had to collect about a dozen Balck Swallowtail caterpillars from my wild dill, a D___ wasp found them and was killing one a day, he'd killed two of them before I'd noticed. They're safe and sound inside my kitchen. I caught the wasps doing the same thing earlier in the spring with my Amercian Painted Ladies.
Liz
I believe it! The wasps are terrible here in my area, too! Come Fall and some cooler weather, the wasps seem to disappear and the butterflies come back. (I hope.)
Good for you for saving the BST cats from a sure death by wasps and other predators! They are beautiful butterflies! Nice close-up shot of the BST wing pattern. :-)
OOOH! I hate those darn buggers! Lets get em girls!
http://www.amazon.com/ELECTRIC-FLY-SWATTER-Insects-Mosquitos/dp/B000EPPFEC
HA! An electric fly swatter!! It does wonders on em!
Adrienne
Do wasps go after Monarchs too? I bring in the BST's to raise, but had my first egg-laying Monarch of the season today. Are they safe from wasps?
Karen - Wasps eat ALL cats in my yard! Including Monarch cats! =:-O
Adrienne - Hmmmm ...... I wonder if that fly swatter would actually work on wasps! :-D
Becky-It works like a charm! They stick to it when I go at them from the side of the plant and then I shake them off and step on them!
Adrienne
Adrienne - REALLY! Now that's rather surprising! I thought it was a fly swatter gag item. I didn't know that it would actually work! Hmmmm ..... might be worth purchasing. Thanks for clarifying the usefulness of that fly-swatter! :-)
Here's the last of my first batch of Black swallowtails, about an hour after emerging from its chrysalis. I've never been able to get a good "open wing" photo until today. I had been waiting too long after they emerged. If you wait until they start fluttering, they will fly away as soon as they see open sky. I was able to get this one to open his wings by gently touching one of its legs with a twig. After I took a few pics, I was able to get it to climb on the twig. Then I transferred it to a zinnia for some more pics.
Here' it is on the fennel:
Mark
Here it is on the zinnia:
Here's a shot from the side:
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to take good photos of black swallowtails! These are my best yet.
Mark
The wasps will also eat any and all cats in my backyard--even the army worms on my tomatoes. But today I saw something I haven't seen before--a stinkbug had killed a large GST cat on one of my lemon trees. I'll spare y'all the pic, but rest assured, the stinkbug got squashed with my bug tongs.
Mark
Mark,
Beautiful pictures! I'm cheering about the dead stink bug, some types are predators.
A grasshopper died today with that same glee. It ate 2 of the 3 new rare amaryllis we just brought back from Ft. Myers.
How far are you from Houston Texas? Going to be there in August, giving a talk on Gingers in the Landscape at Mercer Arboretum. I'm scared to death! I jsut found out about yesterday, very nervous. I want to tell people about gingers attracting butterflies amd hummingbirds.
HI KAREN :-)
Liz
American Painted Lady cat
Oh great! I didn't know stink bugs were cat predators. I have them in my garden. Drat!!!!
Your butterflies and photos are lovely, Mark! :-)
Liz - I have never seen a Painted Lady cat here. What was it eating in your yard? Good luck on the Ginger talk. I am growing my very first Ginger (given to me from a wonderful DG member) and I can't wait until it gets big enough to bloom. I was told the blooms are pink (not white). Do all ginger have a nice scent?
Hi Liz,
I'm about 4 and half hours from Houston--so I don't get over that way too often. Just practice that talk a couple of times, and remember that once you start talking, you will forget about being nervous. Good luck!
Mark
Very nice pictures of the Black Swallowtail, Mark. Really nice and clear. : )
Liz, good luck with your talk. I think everyone gets nervous to some degree, when they have to be in a spotlight. They just wanna know what you know, about gingers. You will do just fine. : )
~Lucy
Thank you everyone, I've only done a couple of talks, but nothing this big.
The American Painted lady eats wild cudweed and everlasting.
Thanks, Liz! I tried growing some everlastings from seed, but I think I might have been over-watering them. They didn't make it. The cudweed and everlasting are both weeds here in Florida. Though not as common as one would think. (At least I don't see either around here very often.)
Hi Liz,
You are going to do just GREAT!!!!
I guarantee it!
Hugs, K
I have had these "dill worms" for years and had no idea they turned into beautiful butterflies. I plant dill every year just because I love the cats. I read up this year on them and found out what it was all about. I have since diligently made sure my cats are safe. Then when they leave one by one to do their thing I never see them again. I also had an experience where I was trying to buy more dill about a week ago and no garden place in my city had any except Wal-Mart but it was mixed in with a bunch of other stuff. While I was looking I happened upon a Swallowtail cat on one of their dills. I just quietly picked up the work on the dill, brought it home, and let it eat my dill until it went on its way. I am really loving these little creatures but wish I could see the results after they get through gorging on this plant.
Are you going to build or buy a caterpillar house to protect them? I have 3 BST chrysalides in this tiny house I made with a piece of screen and a glue gun. The 3 caterpillars I fed inside have changed to chrysalides. I am only worried that my house is too small and that they won't have enough space to stretch out their wings. Now I have 7 more caterpillars outside on my parsley. I have not brought them into the cage because I don't want to crowd the butterflies as they emerge from chrysalides. I am guessing that now I must build a bigger cage. Any suggestions?
The first year or two that we got seriously into raising butterflies, we had over 40 monarch chrysalises on the west eaves of the house at one time. We were hatching and releasing close to a dozen a week. Then the wasps, ants and other predators invaded. The ants will eat the eggs. The bad part is you can't use any pesticides without killing the larvae or butterflies. We bring inside and save what we can. Have 4 Eastern Black Swallowtail chrysalises in the kitchen at this time. The first one should emerge in the next day or two, with the other three following in about a week. So far we have raised and released Giant Swallowtails, Spicebush ST's, Monarchs, Gulf Frit's, Orange-barred Sulphurs & Eastern Black ST's. Possibly others, just drawing a blank.
In addition to the usual ST's, we have seen Western Tigers, Eastern Tigers, Polydamas and Pipevine ST's so far this year. Hope they reproduce. For the life of me I can't get a Polydamas to slow down long enough to get a decent picture.
Mate of 8
Karen,
thank you ma'am, but you're always too kind :-)
Lost,
You say you never see the butterflies at any of your flowers getting nectar? That's really odd, you definetly have the butterflies visiting, hence the babies :-)
Just today I noticed about a half a dozen different types of butterflies flying around the same section of the garden. We have an old timey Chinese species Buddleia in the garden and the butterflies fight over it.
I have successfully raised my first butterfly in captivity. This BST was born (eclosed?) this morning. As with any new birth, of course I had to take a zillion pictures. Here are a couple I took inside the cage.
And here are some taken on a red penta.
Oh, it's beautiful, snuzer. Just perfect. : )
~Lucy
I got 1 lil baby cat off my milkweed today. Got it all set up, in it's own lil place. It's alittle bigger than an eyelash. It will be my 1st. I had plenty of tule left over from my daughters wedding 2 years ago. I knew that stuff would come in handy one day. lol : )
~Lucy
Sue - Your BST is gorgeous! Great photo collages too! Congrats!
Lucy - If your baby cat is that small, it might still be able to crawl through the tulle and sneak out. Been there and had that happen. I now use sheer scarf-like material. LOL! And those babies do like to go on the move! :-)
Glad you brought those babes in and saved them from the wasp Liz!!
Georgeous pics Everyone! And congratulations on your first BST! I hope to bring a few to eclose state this weekend. They will also be my first!
As for the larger cage, yes most definately move them to a larger cage as they start to pupate. That way they have room to find their on spot and when they eclose, room to expand their wings and fly around a while before you release them.
I was excited to see that someone said you don't have to get them outside quickly. That they usually don't nectar for the first day anyway. So I don't feel so guilty for not being home when some of them eclose. Also sometimes it is raining and I can wait until a better time without a problem.
Becky, it isn't really tulle, it looks like fine spun tissue cloth, really strong. The baby can't get thru it. Do the eat at night? He/she appears to be sleeping right now.
Lucy - They will rest between instar stages or after eating a lot. Not to worry. :-)
Sheila, you couldn't be more correct about waiting before you try to release them:
As for the larger cage, yes most definately move them to a larger cage as they start to pupate. That way they have room to find their on spot and when they eclose, room to expand their wings and fly around a while before you release them
O.K. I had to get him/her a milkweed with leaves and buds, cause he was eating buds when I found him. I would take a picture of him tomorrow if I knew how to use the macro thingy on my camera.
Deborah, I don't know what kind he is..... he is tiny, but has lil black stripes on him.....I think. I'll look closer tomorrow.
I'm sure it will only take but a couple of days of eating and then you'll be able to tell. They grow so fast!.
Deborah - Believe me .... I would bet that everyone here has had some failures raising cats especially as newbies. I've had more than my fair share it seems at times. And sometimes it's just mother nature's way of allow the strongest to survive. If only 2% actually survive in the wild, then anything you do to increase that percentage is helping them. The ones you have raised so far probably wouldn't have even made it that far. They'd probably have been eaten by a predator before they made it past the first instar. Trust me, the more you raise, the better you get at learning how to improve the odds! Even as many as I have raised and released, I still have had entire cats wiped out in cages due to a cat virus or predator that got them before I had time to do anything to save them. It's always a challenge anytime, but the rewards of success far out-weight the failures! Trust me on that! :-)
Lucy - Sounds like a good idea giving your baby more food. I use a good magnifying glass up against my camera lens to take macro photos. Unfortunately, I don't have a macro option on my camera. (That's a trick that I learned from Deb_nes!)
Ok, Deborah..thanks. : ) Now, .....I've gotta think of a name for him/her. : )
I'll try the magnifing glass like you said Becky. : )
Thanks everyone! It was so cool to have it come out this morning when I didn't have to work.
Doing the happy dance, my 5 Monarch cats are growing and eating up a storm, safely on my lanai.
Lucy, if your cat has two antennae on the front and two at the back it is a monarch. If it has both front and back plus two just forward of the middle it is a queen.
The first of my 4 Black ST chrysalises emerged late yesterday and it flew successfully this morning. A boy. Also today we were visited for a quarter of an hour by a huge Eastern Tiger male. Very photogenic. Also, the day before yesterday we were visited by a Polydamas. Had seen them several times this year but this one stayed still long enough to get confirmation shots.
Rod (mate of 8)
