It has been a bad year for Monarchs. I was only able to raise three from caterpillar stage. I did not find any eggs and saw very few butterflies. We are praying that next year is a great year for them again.
But, we are raising Eastern Black Swallowtails. When we got back from Colorado, Mark went to check our gardens. He said we had some caterpillars on our dill. We researched them and discovered they were Eastern Black Swallowtails.
We found out that they eat anything in the carrot family; like dill, Queen Anne’s Lace, carrots, fennel and parsley. We collected the big ones because the big ones looked like the pictures in our book. We researched the little ones to find out that they were the same caterpillar, they just change three times!
When we brought them in, we cut off as as little as we could from what they were eating, and started feeding them Queen Anne’s Lace. Momma wanted her dill and fennel for us to eat! They don’t eat as fast as Monarchs, but they eat as much.
Fourteen of them are chrysalises–we have two caterpillars left–but do not know when they will emerge. If they don’t emerge this fall, they will overwinter and emerge in late April or May. I want at least one to emerge soon. I hope to watch it emerge too.
