My husband and I went to the pasture to do our first Monarch Larvae Monitoring of the season. He found two instars (caterpillars), one 5th instar--a big boy, and a fourth instar. He also found a milkweed with five eggs on it. We recorded the milkweed population, noted the wildflowers in bloom, and had a lovely hour of wandering around a section of the pasture, looking for butterfly evidence. We've seen monarchs in the pasture and at the flower beds, so our season is well and truly under way!
The northward progress begins. Jane, do you submit your findings to a Monarch larva monitoring project? Jerry
Jerry, yes, we do. The MLMP (Monarch Larva Monitoring Project) is out of the University of Minnesota, and they have monitors and monitoring sites all over. http://www.mlmp.org/ will show a map of the monitoring sites, as well as monarch information and a newsletter. We took our training here in Texas, but since then the training has been offered on-line. We've done this for about 10 years, and it's amazing the difference in populations from year to year--a real roller-coaster.
Great work you two are doing, MG. I think that that project is such a worthwhile thing to do. Good work. I would really enjoy seeing some fotos of plants, eggs, larvae and eventually pupae.
Sounds like a great time to me. Where are the pictures of your adventure? My step-daughter lives in Austin and say's that the wild flowers are so beautiful this year because of the rain. I want to see, I want to see them, please.
Sjoerd, your wish is my command! I just posted on the Members' Gallery some photos we've sent to the Larva Project. Tooty, I'll sort through the wildflower photos and post some soon. I hope you'll enjoy them!
Hey!! Thank you soooo much. I do like to see examples of things which I find interesting. BTW-- can you explain the technical terms, such as: 5th instar. I liked seeing that robber screen that you guys came up with. I could not see the little intrance hole that you described, though. Where should I look to see that...and how did you make it exactly?
I'm a little vague on technical terms, but I'll do my best! The first instar is the tiny caterpillar that hatches from the egg. As it eats and grows, it goes through four more stages (second, third, fourth, and finally fifth instar). I have no idea why they are called "instars". The fifth instar stage is when it starts to make its crysalis which hangs from a milkweed stem. Then the butterfly emerges and continues its migration. The robber screen on the bee hive is to keep out "alien" bees who will enter a hive and take honey. The screen is simply a piece of 1/8" hardware cloth on a frame that fits up against the hive face, leaving about an inch or two between the hive face and the screen. It encloses the front of the hive except at the top where the entrance hole is. The entrance hole size isn't critical--ours is about 3" across so there isn't a traffic jam when many bees are returning or leaving the hive. Resident bees leave by flying up and over, and when they return they know the "path" back into the hive. Alien bees don't know the path, and can't get in. Glad you liked the photos!
