On August 11, 2019, it came to my attention that my neighbor was raising Monarch butterflies. Upon arriving at their home, I witnessed one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. There in front of me were several enclosures with dozens of caterpillars eating away at milkweed. I asked them as many questions as I could on their experience. With my limited knowledge, I did know a few things, one was the fact that roughly one in ten monarchs will survive from egg to adult butterfly. Second, the numbers of these butterflies have been declining for over 20 years.
Knowing that I could participate in increasing the population gave me inspiration to learn everything I possible could on the Monarch butterfly, I dove in this endeavor deep. I ordered supplies that I needed at the time including floral tubes to house milkweed plants. my brother and I started looking for caterpillars on our countless thousands of milkweed plants. I would wash the cuttings off and place them in the tubes and place them in the aquariums. Eventually I also purchased butterfly mesh cages as well. I read books and joined internet monarch groups from all around the country and as my new journey continued, I learned a lot. Sure I made some mistakes and there are diseases and various other predators that will destroy the butterfly in various stages, but I kept at it because I knew that I could make a difference.
A few days later, I was doing my small part.
From August 15, 2019, to May, 13, 2020, I raised 26 Monarchs successfully. You are probably wondering why I was still caring for butterflies well into 2020? You see, two events happened during this wonderful time.
The first was on September 25th, my brother and I were at a local lake when we spotted a male monarch that was sitting on the ground. I tried to get him to fly with no success. I picked him up and brought him home with us. He was very weak and obviously was not able to feed for some time. I put some watermelon out and he ate for a few minutes.
The next day, I started feeding him honey and water mix, another thing I learned from some of the Monarch groups I joined. They also named him Ford, after I posted a photo of him. At this point, I knew that he would live out the rest of his life in my home. The fact that he was from the migrating generation, he could live up to 5 or 6 months under the perfect conditions, as opposed to living between 2 to 6 weeks for the first three generations.
Ford eating watermelon
The second event happened two days later. One of my butterflies formed a small chrysalis. Sometimes this happens if they form their chrysalis too early when they are a third or fourth instar. They need to go through all five instar stages to have the best chance of emerging as a healthy adult butterfly.
At 9:15 PM, the butterfly eclosed (opened), I noticed right away that this butterfly was small, especially for a male. Then I noticed the chrysalis was stuck to his face I tried wetting it with a cotton swab and it worked I also noticed his front legs did not extend, they were partially stuck folded. I took a tweezers and tried a toothpick with no success. Once his wings dried, which takes about 15 minutes, I could see his true size. I put him on a table and fed him. At this point, I honestly thought that he would not make it through the night. At 11:30, I put him in his own enclosure and went to bed. To my surprise, the next morning he was still alive. In the following weeks, both Ford and Harold, also named by another internet monarch group, became a big part of my life. Many people and some experts said I should euthanize them, that they serve no purpose by being alive because they can never mate and produce offspring. Being a big-hearted person, I just could not do that, besides, this was becoming a rewarding learning experience that I would never forget.
On October 7th, with high temperatures in the low 50’s, I released my last two butterflies for the season. I felt that my first experience with raising these beauties went very well overall.
Harold and Ford were doing well considering their conditions, Ford with an injured wing and Harold with an underdeveloped body. Every morning and evening, I would take them out of their screen enclosures and manually feed them.
Below are a few videos I took around mid-November.
Ford drinking honey water
Harold drinking honey water
I remember around the holidays, looking out the picture window with over two feet of snow on the ground and temperatures well below zero and here I am feeding monarch butterflies inside my living room. I felt so fortunate that I was able to have these two beauties in my life. I know it sounds corny, but the winters are very long here in northern, MN and people who live up here need some ray of hope that spring is just around the corner and that's another thing they gave me.
As the weeks and months passed, I continued to learn more about raising monarchs. There is nothing like having the butterflies in your care for their entire life as an adult, especially the migrating generation. Even with their problems, Harold and Ford gave me knowledge and inspiration and hope. Sadly, Harold passed away on February 16th. I would go on to care for Ford until May 13th when he passed away just 2 days shy of eight months. It was amazing caring for those two, I will never forget them or the experience.
Below are a few videos taken during the 2019 season.
Caterpillars eating milkweed
For me, the new monarch season started on June 2nd, when I found my first egg. By July 1st, my first butterfly was released, this was a beautiful male. As the summer progressed, I continued to learn even more by my personal experiences. One of my caterpillars ended up with Tachnid Fly. These flies will lay up to 8 eggs inside a caterpillar, usually between the 4th and 5th instar stage of growth. When the caterpillar assumes the “J” position, which they do usually 12 hours before they Pupate (go into chrysalis form). The eggs will hatch inside their body and come out. At this point, the caterpillar is then killed. There are literally dozens of Parasites and bacterial diseases similar to this and of course countless predators that affect or kill the monarch in various stages of their life. Weather also plays a role, temperatures too hot, over 95 degrees, or too cold, below 32 degrees. Severe storms and wind also can destroy the monarch in all stages.
The caterpillar that ended up getting infected with the T-Fly larvae was the only one that I rescued this season. All the rest were eggs, by doing this method, there is almost no chance that anything will happen to the monarch during all stages until it is released. There are threats as an adult butterfly such as Wasps, Dragonflies, Birds and a few others, but it is not as much of a threat as it is from egg, through the chrysalis stage.
This is another reason I do this, in my care, I will have over a 95% chance of getting them safely outside as an adult as opposed to less than 5% out in nature. I Raised 41 monarchs in the 2020 season. Out of the 41, I had 21 females and 19 males and the one that died from T-Fly. During the season, I had some issues with the weather when it came time to release each butterfly. First, temperatures must be at least 50 degrees for a monarch to fly, and even then, they only can fly short distances until they warm up. Second, if it is raining anything more than a very light rain, it just won’t work. Third, If the winds are heavy, they will not be able to navigate on their first flight. And finally, if they eclose too late in the day, they cannot be released until the next day because you never release a butterfly in the dark. I ran into these conditions several times. A monarch needs up to three hours before they are ready to fly once they eclose from the chrysalis. They also should take in some form of energy either from flowers or key nutrients from the ground, in the case of males. Over time I have had to manually feed dozens of butterflies.
Videos of manually fed monarchs
Monarch Pupating (forming a chrysalis)
Monarch eclosing (coming out of the chrysalis)
The images below were taken at the time of the releases throughout the summer
Now it's early April of 2021, each day, my excitement and anticipation of the upcoming summer months for raising monarchs is giving me hope for an even better year for increasing the population of these majestic beauties. I'm eagerly waiting for that first milkweed to pop up out of the ground, because I know that soon to follow, I'll be collecting my first eggs of the year.
On May 25th, 2021, the season started for raising monarchs. I observed a female laying eggs on some of the new milkweed that sprouted about a week ago. Within a few hours, I had my supplies ready and by that evening, I collected 18 eggs. Over the course of the next few days, I continued gathering eggs. Four days after I started my venture, we had freezing temperatures for a few nights. The monarch in any stage cannot survive with temps below freezing. This weather, essentially wiped out the eggs, cats and butterflies on our property and of course the surrounding area. At this point it was imperative that I raise these butterflies with a high success rate so they could produce more offspring for the next generation.
By June 4th, I had 22 caterpillars. Within a few weeks, I was collecting eggs again from a few monarchs that came to our property from other areas. On June 25th, I released my first two butterflies, what a beautiful sight.
Up until July 20th, I continued to collect eggs, raise and release adult monarchs. There was a huge problem with this summer in Minnesota this year. We had a drought that lasted for months over the summer. We also had a few days where it reached over 90 degrees. Even though we have thousands of milkweed, these plants were very stressed, which resulted in smaller plants and early flowering. Most of the eggs will be destroyed with the lack of moisture, they will dry out and become infertile. After July 20th, I only found a few eggs and they never hatched. The adult butterflies I released stayed here for a while, but a few storms along with the dry weather drove them away from our property and I'm sure many perished from those storms. I ended up raising 46 monarchs, 22 females and 24 males. As wonderful as this is, Bottom line, it's wonderful that I raised 46, 2nd and 3rd generation butterflies but I have no idea how many of these produced 4th generation offspring. In past years, I raised many 4th generation monarchs, knowing they would attempt their migration down to Mexico.
On July 7th, something happened which will affect the rest of the season. In the front yard, my brother Jeff noticed a monarch on the ground that could not fly more than a foot before falling to the ground again. After further observation, I noticed this male had wrinkled wings. A protozoan parasite known as Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) in most cases causes this problem, When the monarch emerges from the chrysalis, it needs to pump fluid into it's wings, with OE, this is not possible. Another issue is that a monarch needs space to fully spread their wings when they emerge, This is what happened to this butterfly. You see, monarchs won't live long with OE but after I was feeding him for a couple of weeks, I eliminated the possibility of that Scenario. I named him "Chance" because I believe that even though this butterfly does not serve a purpose for reproduction, he deserves to live. Many pundants would disagree with me as I mentioned earlier but I simply do not have the heart to euthanize butterflies unless they have a disease, where it could be spread to others. Plus, the learning experience and the satisfaction is unmeasurable.
On January 14, Chance Passed away . He lived for 191 days, over 27 weeks. Chance was a third generation monarch, the first three generations only live between 2-6 weeks. I have had unbelievable success with the three butterflies with issues that I have raised. He was fed once per day with an organic honey-water mixture. I continue to learn more about monarchs every day and Chance played a role in this on-going effort to help monarchs as much as I can.
Chance feeding, August 25th
Chance feeding, November 26th
On May 27th, 2022, I started collecting my first eggs of the season. The nighttime temperatures were still close to freezing so I gathered as many eggs as possible. With the first batch, I ended up with 16 over the first week. Out of those, 15 hatched within the first 5 days. I try to raise responsibly with what I can handle. Even with our endless supply of milkweed, I don't have the time to raise hundreds. During the next two months, I continued to collect third generation eggs. Even though I had successfully released dozens of monarchs during the summer, the fourth generation eggs were limited. Keep in mind that since we have thousands of milkweed and endless wildflowers, there are plenty of eggs, caterpillars and adult monarchs on the property that I never get a chance to see. What I do is to ensure that a certain number of monarchs will make it to the fourth generation. The idea of raising these beauties is to successfully release the fourth generation for their migratory journey down to Mexico. By the end of the season, I raised 38 monarchs, 18 females and 20 males. In general, you want more females than males to increase your chances of more offspring. All the fourth generation ones are always released in September and early October. Everything was going good until the temperatures started to drop significantly. All the butterflies were released for their journey south, except one. This particular one was slow developing through it's various stages, including the chrysalis which took over 20 days before it finally eclosed. By this time, it was too cold to safely release it without even a fighting chance of making down south. I had to make the choice to either euthanize this female or keep her inside for the remainder of her life. As you know from what I said earlier, I will not euthanize a butterfly unless it has a disease that could affect future generations, so I decided to keep her. I named her Charlotte, she did very well using the same feeding practices as I did with other ones. She lived from October 10 to January 18