Thursday, August 16, 2012

Living in the Butterfly Weed

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In the past few days I have found in my butterfly weed (a type of milkweed) two baby monarch caterpillars and a whole lot of milkweed aphids. In my google research I have found that the milkweed aphids can multiply rapidly and quickly destroy the whole plant, I have also found that most treatments to remove the aphids may also hurt the caterpillars. It has only been 2 days, but I’m developing a very maternal bond with the little caterpillars.

I ended up, buying some lady bug attractant. Lady bugs eat aphids, apparently they also eat caterpillars eggs and baby caterpillars, but my caterpillars are already notably bigger than yesterday and I think they will be fine. The picture below are from yesterday, can you tell a different in their size? I can. DSC_0458-1

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