COMMENTARIES - MONARCH LOG 2022


This is an informal account of our first year raising Monarchs from eggs laid on Milkweed plants in our garden. All three of "our” Monarchs emerged and took off to Mexico. We are ridiculously proud of them!

All photos ©2022 E.Hiestand unless otherwise noted



Monarch Log  | 12 August 2022

If you plant it, they will come! Here is a female Monarch butterfly visiting our small stand of Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). Swamp milkweed, which likes damp soils in full sun, is one of the best attractors of the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), which feeds on the flowers and lays its eggs on the plants. The tiny, emerging caterpillars then feed on the milkweed leaves. 

Monarch Log 3-12 August 2022

This is one of the two Monarch caterpillars we are raising until they morph into butterflies. We started the project on August 3rd when our entomologist pal Andrea showed us how to: A) spot a Monarch egg (a nearly invisible white speck) on a leaf; then B) delicately remove the egg and the leaf to a small vial of water in a screen-house. The screen house will protecting the egg from various insects, including ants, wasps, and spiders. Today is Day 9 for our two caterpillars, which changed from tiny flat, white dots to tiny, dimensional green dots by Day 3. They are now about 1/4” in length, and each one is eating most of a milkweed leaf each day. The next step will be to place them on a larger cutting of multiple leaves and to add some twigs to the screen house from which they can hang during the pupa stage.

A tiny Monarch caterpillar, starting to munch on milkweed leaves


Monarch Log 18 August 2022 

Swamp Milkweeds are so festive this time of year — as well as being the #1 food + nursery for Monarchs. Both the Monarch egg-specks are now 1.5" caterpillars who have eaten through ~6 Milkweed leaves each and have made their way to the top of the small milkweed plants in the screen-house. We think they are just starting to look (feel?) for stems to attach to and start the chrysalis stage. 

Look at those cool antennae!

Swamp Milkweed

A growing Monarch caterpillar, eating milkweed leaves


Monarch Log | 21 August 2022

How it started. How it's going.

Enlarged image of a Monarch egg on a milkweed leaf; iStock photo


Monarch Log | 22-23 August 2022  

Yesterday, our two caterpillars, now huge, spun tiny silk pads by which they attached themselves to stems, hanging downward in a "J" shape—the classic sign that a Monarch caterpillar is preparing to enter the chrysalis stage. By 4am this morning they had each metamorphosed into a jade-green chrysalis with a sprinkling of gold dots!  So proud of them!  The Monarch chrysalis is one of the most beautiful things in nature.  (Must read up on the function of these shining, metallic gold dots.)

A curious thing happened just before they each began to spin the attachment silk for the J-shape stage; they crawled to each other and stayed that way, antennae touching, on the ceiling of the screen house, for about two hours. They hadn't been at all physically close to each other at anytime while they were divvying up and eating every leaf in sight for the past two weeks. Probably I'm anthropomorphizing, but for all the world, it seemed like they were having a fond, farewell visit in their caterpillar forms. And/or exchanging some kind of information?  A friend named the pair Ricky and Lucy. 

Monarch chrysalis; iStock photo


Monarch Log 6 September 2022

Here they are:  After two weeks, "our” caterpillars (aka the Ricardos) emerged from their Chrysalis stage, during which they had metamorphosed into Monarchs,  It turned out that they were both males, which you can tell by the small, blurry ovals seen along one of the black “veins” on the bottom wings.  Here is a photo of them (Ricky and Ricky2!) being released in the garden. They were both reluctant to leave my hand, so after about 20 minutes, I nudged each one gently to settle on the Buddleia blossoms, where they stayed for most of an hour, trying out their probosces for sipping nectar, before — suddenly, in unison — lifting off to Mexico!  

Ricky and Ricky on Release Day, September 2022


Monarch Log 6 September 2022

Our screen house was still occupied, however, because, to our surprise a third caterpillar had showed up while the first two were in their chrysalis stage! We can only imagine that he must have been an egg on one of the Milkweed leaf cuttings that we brought in every few days to feed the Ricardos. We named him Tres.

Monarch Log | 6-23 2022

Tres went through the same process of growing (slightly larger than our first two), becoming a Chrysalis, then emerging as a butterfly — in the wee hours of the morning of 23 September — while we were sleeping. Very fun to wake up and find a butterfly in the parlor!

Monarch Log | 24 Sept 2022

The next morning we released Tres, with the help of friends Maia and her daughter Xenia who brought great extra spirit to the send-off. Like his earlier siblings. Tres is a male, signified by the small, blurry oval markings on the black markings of his lower wings.

Saturday Sept 24th was a sunny, but cool morning (about 53º) so Tres sipped nectar from Buddleia blooms in the garden for several hours, waiting for the temp to climb above 55º, the minimum temperature Monarchs need for successful flying.  

Release Day for Tres. L: Lingering in our hands R: learning to sip flower nectar


Monarch Log  | 24 Sept 2022, cont. 

Here is Tres with his beautiful wings fully open. Every Monarch arrives in the world sort of like a very good Ikea product that still "needs some final assembly."

Step One: Immediately upon emergence from the chrysalis, a Monarch must inflate its wings to their proper size and shape. The butterfly does this by pumping its wings full of the hemolymph fluid that formed in its abdomen in the chrysalis. Any excess fluid is discharged after the wings are fully extended.

Step Two: The next thing a Monarch must do is assemble its proboscis — the long, slender, curling straw-like part through which it will sip nectar for nourishment for his first flight. A Monarch’s proboscis emerges in two parts, and the young butterfly must fuse them into one, functional piece.

Step Three: We were surprised and charmed to discover that our Monarchs — after assembling themselves — wanted to spend time on hand before doing much of anything else. Each of our Monarchs spent about 30 minutes resting on someone’s hand; until we very gently placed them on a Buddleia bush so they could start sipping nectar.

Step Four: After about two hours, when the outside temperature was close to 60ºF,  Tres took wing, joining a cohort of millions of other East Coast Monarchs on the journey to Mexico.  

Tres resting on a hand; before taking sipping Buddleia nectar and taking flight to Mexico; photo ©2022 Peter N. Dunn


Monarch Log | Late September 2022

The chart below is life cycle calendar for eastern Monarch butterflies. To understand the cycle, start at top of the chart at the orange, downward arrow; then follow the chart clockwise to see the stages and locations of eastern Monarchs throughout the year. Our Monarchs are part of the 4th, “Super," or "Methuselah" generation that is born near the end of each summer, then migrates south to overwinter and reproduce in the forested mountains west of Mexico City. The super-generation lives much longer — up to nine months — than the three proceeding Monarch generations of the year, each of which lives only 4-6 weeks, long enough to become a butterfly, reproduce, and fly to the next location.

Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle Calendar; courtesy of the National Park Service