Finally - more monarch eggs

So far this year, we've raised only eight monarchs, and we've seen only one or two adult butterflies (except our own that we released).

Finally, today I saw a monarch butterfly and I discovered ten eggs!

This year, every egg is more precious than ever since there have been so few monarchs not just here in Central New York, but elsewhere in the country. I'm tightening up my method for raising them. I'm going to keep no more than ten eggs / caterpillars -- collected the same day -- together in one container to minimize the chances of spreading any disease such as Oe.

The sad fact is that this makes a total of 18 monarchs (assuming they'll all make it to butterflyhood) this year; last year at this time we had 45.

There have been similar or even greater declines in our black swallowtails, American lady, and other butterflies. In fact, we haven't seen many butterflies of any kind very often.