When Monarchs Aren’t Around

Cloudless Sulphur

While the Monarch population is currently non-existent in my garden and many others in the St. Louis area, there’s a good replacement in early August – The Cloudless Sulphur.

This lemon colored butterfly is slightly smaller than a Monarch, but it’s still striking in the garden.

The trick to getting these in your garden is to have Partridge Pea growing in the garden. It’s a magnet not only for bumble bees, but it’s also the host plant for the Cloudless Sulphur. Once you get these plants started in your garden, you never have to buy them again. They are an annual which will gladly freely reseed itself and provide you with plenty of plants the next year. You can also save the seeds and plant the seeds in the fall anywhere you want them to grow next year.

I like them to grow as a second flowering annual. Usually I have bulbs, milkweed and coreopsis flowering in spring and then Partridge Pea comes on strong in August.

The eggs are tiny, white and football shaped.

What I’ve found is that the butterflies even like petunias for nectar.

Lobeila cardinalis and red salvia are also favorites of theirs.

Lobelias cardinalis

Color in the August Garden

Tiger Swallowtail on dwarf Joe Pye Weed.

Tracking Monarchs and Hummingbirds

If you are outside looking for Monarch butterflies and Hummingbirds, the good news is that they are close and coming north. They could be in St. Louis in as little as a week.

To be ready, have plenty of milkweed on hand and nectar plants/feeders for the hummingbirds.

Hummingbird Migration – April 3, 2020

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Monarch Migration – April 3, 2020

Local St. Louis Butterflies

One of the important thing to know before you start buying plants is which butterflies are in your area. Luckily the St. Louis Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association has created a list of all the butterflies in the St. Louis area.

I have highlighted the common ones I find in my garden in the Crestwood area.

Thanks to NABA – the St. Louis Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association for allowing us to use this list.
http://nabastl.org/

Note – right click – open image in new tab – to see this best.

Save the Cats

This time of year, mid-October, is a good time to look for caterpillars and chrysalises and bring them into a protected area.

The problem with just letting them stay on plants is that they may not develop properly with the colder temperatures. Also, if they do make it to the chrysalis stage, they are so well camouflaged, that they are almost impossible to find in the spring when you are cleaning up the garden waste.

Monarchs need to fly to Mexico, so as soon as they form the chrysalis, try and keep them in a warmer area so they can develop into the butterfly stage. When it gets over 50 degrees, you can release them outside.

Black Swallowtails over-winter in the chrysalis stage. I like to keep the chrysalises in the garage which is not heated. They will usually emerge in April. If you do find a chrysalis in a outside area that you won’t be messing with, leave it alone.

Giant Swallowtails also over-winter in the chrysalis stage, so if you have them keep them in a cold area over the winter.

I like to raise caterpillars in a fish tank covered with a metal mesh screen. I put paper towels on the bottom. The caterpillars climb to the top and hang from the mesh. I prefer this method since it is easy to sanitize the fish tank with a bleach solution.

Another method is to use a laundry hamper with paper towels on the bottom.

 

Hummingbird Feeders for Butterflies and Bees

One of my late season observations was that my hummingbird feeders were attracting painted lady butterflies and bees. Since the hummingbirds were gone, I took off the top of one of my feeders and put in some plastic landing pads.

As you can see above, butterflies and bees are both attracted to this feeder. I am still using the 1 to 4 ratio of sugar to water. The bees will drink the liquid within an hour.

As you can see in the video below, it does get rather busy, but the bees paid no attention to me and were not aggressive at all.

Black Swallowtails in the Garden

While Monarchs have been rare this summer, there have been lots of Black Swallowtails around laying eggs in St. Louis. I have personally raised or given away about thirty caterpillars to schools.

Luckily Black Swallowtails have a wide palette of host plants. These include, bronze fennel (their favorite this year), rue (also good for Giant Swallowtails), Golden Alexander – Zizia aptera, dill. fennel, Parsley, and Queen Anne’s lace. If you see a caterpillar on any of these plants, there’s a good chance it’s a Black Swallowtail.

 

Pollinator Information Videos

Here are videos from the University of Missouri and their Center for Agroforestry. While the videos are meant mainly for farmers, it’s also valuable information for any gardener.

Scott Hoffman Black

 

Gary Bentrup

 

Lauren Ponisio

 

Mike Arduser

 

Nadia Navarrete-Tindall

 

Ed Spevak

 

Panel Discussion

 

Leo Sharashkin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8_J2uUKZvo

Butterfly Videos

I just found a new podcast that I’m enjoying, Smarter Every Day, and found that he did a whole series on butterflies.  I think you will enjoy it.

Here’s the link for the entire series.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjHf9jaFs8XXTjhjRCAZ4sOBdpXfsv3hC

Below is a link to just one of the videos.

 

 

Butterfly Nectar

Ideally butterflies will find plenty of nectar in the flowers they find outside, but there are occasions when the flowers are gone and you want to feed some butterflies which have come out late in the fall or very early in the spring. Here are some possible solutions.

Note – the reason this subject came up was because a friend had a butterfly house, that I used to think were a waste of money. The house was outside until January 1st, when she brought it inside. The next day, a Mourning Cloak came out into the house. She has been feeding it every day for the last three weeks.

Fruit – I’ve used watermelon and orange slices and honeydew melon.

Gatorade – I use the plain version. I’ve also heard of people using Juicy Juice.

Hummingbird mix – 4 to 1 mix of water to sugar.

Monarch Watch – sugar/honey – 1 part to 9 parts water.

Nigel Venters Mix – 1# fructose, 1 cup water, bring to a boil for 2 minutes and then add 1 tsp of soy sauce. Use this as a concentrate. Add to water in  a 1 part concentrate to 9 parts water.

Honey to Water – 1 to 10 mix

Monarch Watch has an artificial nectar mix they sell. I bought one and here are the directions.

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 cups of water warm water
• 1-2 drops of food color (why would they add this?)
• 1 drop fruit extract – any kind.
• Contents of the packet – there is no indication what this is other than some sort of preservative.
• They tell you to keep this in the refrigerator and it should last for months.
• Note – this small packet has about 15 nuggets of bee pollen. Some dissolves and some doesn’t. This seems like a simple ingredient to add to any mix. I take bee pollen every day so I always have some around.

Monarch Watch also suggests putting the nectar up high and near a light source.