It has been a pretty darn good year in the butterfly house so far! We have raised and released about 250 monarchs so far. We allowed many of them to breed and lay eggs on milkweed plants in the greenhouse before their release, so we now have many hundred (thousand?) larvae coming along. We should have plenty of a variety of sizes for distribution to the local school districts.
If you are interested in larvae for your classroom, Johanna is coordinating the effort this year. You can email her at johannalittle@aol.com. They will be available for pickup at the greenhouse over labor day weekend. She can also answer any possible question you could have on raising them!
Various pictures of larvae/butterflies in various stages of development are available at https://picasaweb.google.com/100426844359989897318.
We are looking for a tagging/release date of September 13 or 14th... stay tuned for details!
J
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
First Generation Raised...
So here we are at August 7th... there are about 250 +/- monarchs in the butterfly house in various stages from larvae to adults. All of these were the effort of just a few females that we raised earlier this summer- see prior post.
We have started to pair off the adults and watch for mating and ultimately egg laying activity. For whatever the reason, we seem to be about 10 days ahead of schedule, so we need to make sure we have eggs being laid over the rest of this month, to be sure we have enough larvae to distribute to all the elementary school classes that want them. Most of the remaining butterflies will just fly around the greenhouse for a few days, but ultimately get released on their merry way. All of this generation will be local breeders rather than migrators. All future eggs laid this year will be the ones who attempt the great migration to central Mexico, overwinter, breed and start the generations who will join us next summer.
My daughter Johanna will be coordinating the distribution of butterflies for the classroom this year. If you are an educator and want some larvae for your classroom, shoot her an email at johannalittle@aol.com and make arrangements. We would expect the distribution to be here at the greenhouse on Labor Day weekend.
The remaining larvae that are raised here in the greenhouse will be tagged before they are released. Generally, we have an open house in mid-September to allow visitors to assist in the tagging and release. Watch this blog for further details on that event...
For more information on monarch migration, visit http://monarchwatch.com/ ...
We have started to pair off the adults and watch for mating and ultimately egg laying activity. For whatever the reason, we seem to be about 10 days ahead of schedule, so we need to make sure we have eggs being laid over the rest of this month, to be sure we have enough larvae to distribute to all the elementary school classes that want them. Most of the remaining butterflies will just fly around the greenhouse for a few days, but ultimately get released on their merry way. All of this generation will be local breeders rather than migrators. All future eggs laid this year will be the ones who attempt the great migration to central Mexico, overwinter, breed and start the generations who will join us next summer.
My daughter Johanna will be coordinating the distribution of butterflies for the classroom this year. If you are an educator and want some larvae for your classroom, shoot her an email at johannalittle@aol.com and make arrangements. We would expect the distribution to be here at the greenhouse on Labor Day weekend.
The remaining larvae that are raised here in the greenhouse will be tagged before they are released. Generally, we have an open house in mid-September to allow visitors to assist in the tagging and release. Watch this blog for further details on that event...
For more information on monarch migration, visit http://monarchwatch.com/ ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)