Butterfly Passion
A Central Florida Home for Butterflies
Caterpillars
A recent tragedy resulted in the untimely death of a number of my Monarch
caterpillars. I bought several nice milkweed plants from a local "big box" store to feed the youngsters. Knowing that many commercial nurseries use pesticides
to keep their plants insect free, I rinsed the plants six times before
offering the leaves as food to the little ones. The next morning I was shocked
to find a large number of the young monarch cats were dead. 
None of the
other babies in the work room had been affected. The only explanation was
the commercial milkweed still contained enough poison to kill them. This nearly broke my heart, as many of them were nearly ready to pupate.
Doing a little research into this, I found that the pesticides used by commercial nurseries are quite long lasting. Several sources
recommend
hold milkweed for at least eight weeks, watering regularly, before using the leaves as food. I won't make this mistake again, and hope that my
loss can be a lesson for others. Using milkweed from this source previously had never been a problem.
However I can't trust them again. I am going to research the grower of the
milkweed and try to talk to them about the problem. In the meantime I am also looking
into trying to grow my own, but it grows slowly, at least in the beginning.
The Little Ones
It's difficult to see in this picture, but there are
about a dozen fritillary caterpillars on the stem here, barely 1/8 inch
long!
This is a small sulfur caterpillar on a cassis
plant