Join our Search Party!

People have been asking me, "Do the eggs just appear?" In northern Illinois the Monarchs have been starting to come through here this week.  If you plant the milkweed, they will come.  I have a small patch of about 25 milkweed plants with pink flowers known as the "swamp milkweed" or Asclepius Incarnate.  The butterflies are attracted to the delicate pink clusters of flowers and lay their eggs underneath the leaves on these milkweed plants.  Everyone in the family is instructed to be on the lookout for Monarchs floating around the yard, and reports their sightings. If one has been spotted, the search party begins. The grandchildren love to take part in the hunt. We start searching the undersides of the leaves on each plant to see if any female Monarch has honored our garden. The eggs are so tiny, smaller than a pinhead.  However, after you have found the first few, your eyes recognize them right away.  Each female Monarch will lay anywhere from 1 to 500 eggs at a time. We carefully take the whole leaf that has an egg or several eggs and bring it inside. Chances of survival are much better for those eggs that are brought inside. According to Monarch Larva Monitoring Project website, fewer than 10% will survive in the wild. According to my 2015 count last summer, less than 10 of my eggs out of over 500 did not survive or develop into butterflies. That's a pretty good average!

Tomorrow: What next? What to do with the eggs when you find them.