Yay, so excited that they have arrived! I came home from work for lunch yesterday and found a couple of eggs. I didn't have time to harvest any and it poured and thunderstormed all night long. First thing this morning I went outside to see how many I had. I found 8 this morning and that was it. After a couple of hours I went outside and saw my first monarch flying around, and then another in the yard to the north of me. I started looking and found 10 more eggs for a total of 18.
May 30, 2011
The Monarch caterpillar can only eat milkweed so that is the only place the female lays her eggs. The egg takes from 3-5 days to hatch. A dime in the picture for size comparison.
It took 5 days for my first egg to hatch. A little longer than usual because of the chilly temps we had. I find that the cooler it is the longer they take to hatch.
June 1, 2011
"When the caterpillar has become too large for its skin, it molts, or sheds its skin. At first, the new skin is very soft, and provides little support or protection. The new skin soon hardens and molds itself to the caterpillar, which often eats the shed skin before starting in anew on plant food! The intervals between molts are called instars. Monarchs go through five instars. Approximate length of body at each stage: 1st instar, 2-6mm; 2nd instar, 6-9mm; 3rd instar, 10-14mm; 4th instar, 13-25mm; 5th instar, 25-45mm." Source: Monarch.org
Normally they stay on their milkweed plant to shed their skin but this little guy climbed off and went down on the newspaper that I have lining the bottom of the aquarium. This is just a normal newspaper so you can compare his size to the size of the print. The black specks you see to your left are his shriveled up skin and caterpillar poop. After they shed they can't move for a while and are very vulnerable when they are outside. I'm sure this is when most of them get eaten. 90% of Monarchs die in the wild. Their main enemy is the wasp.I have named this little guy/girl, McQueen, after the actress, Butterfly McQueen. You cannot tell whether they are male or female until they form their chrysalis.
05/14/2010: About 3 weeks later and the milkweed has gotten considerably larger. I can see the flower bud already. 
May 29, 2010: Saw a monarch this morning! It wasn't in my garden but of course the first thing I am going to do is to get out my magnifying glass and see if there are eggs. WooHoo! I found two eggs on my plants behind my house, but none in my actual butterfly garden. I'm sure there are more out there somewhere but I haven't had time to check. I wanted to get these in the house where they are safe and get a picture. When I bring them in the house I clip off the top part of the milkweed and I put them in a small bottle, and then in a small aquarium.
May 30, 2010: As you can see in the picture below, the egg has turned almost black. That is the caterpillar inside, ready to come out. I sat with my camera for about 2 hours and tried to get a picture of it coming out of the egg. Unfortunately it was getting late, I was beat from a long day, and I had to give up and get some rest. If I get another one at some point I will insert it after this picture.
May 31, 2010: Sometime in the middle of the night, a little caterpillar was born! I'm calling this one Doodle, as in Doodle Bug. He will be the subject for the blog this year. I have approximately 7 eggs at the moment. This is just the first batch, they will come back and lay eggs many times during the summer and I will harvest every time. As every year, we will start off with a grain of rice so you can see how tiny he is.
June 1, 2010: You can see by the photo below how much he has grown, just overnight! His stripes are more defined and his shape is much more streamlined. I now have 10 caterpillars! 
June 3, 2010: He's still not bigger than the grain of rice but he's getting there. I 'think' he must have shed his skin not long before this picture was taken. They shed their skin 5 times during their life as a caterpillar. Each new stage is called an instar. You can see that he is now starting to get his antennae.
June 4, 2010: I think he's officially bigger than the grain of rice! His antennae have grown since yesterday and he's looking more and more like a full grown caterpillar.
June 6, 2010: Look how much he has grown in just two days! I love this stage! Their antennae look like puppy dog ears. They are much too big for his body LOL.
June 6, 2010: Another shot from the same day, just a different angle. He's really looking like a caterpillar should! I say he but truthfully you can't tell the gender until they form their chrysalis.
June 8, 2010: 8 days old now and it will probably only be two more days until he forms his chrysalis at the top of the aquarium. I have a screen top on there which makes it easy for them to spin their little web where they will hang for 7 to 10 days. 
June 10, 2010: 10 days old now and he should head to the top at any moment. I've never had one go much beyond 10 days as a caterpillar. He's really beautiful, don't you think?
June 11, 2010: When I woke this morning to find Doodle in his J shape, I was SO excited! I've been raising butterflies for years now and this is the first time that one has hung itself on a piece of milkweed rather than the top of the cage. So hard to get nice pictures when you have a plastic lid or metal screen in the background. 
June 11, 2010: Below is a series of photos that show the transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis. Lots of people think that the chrysalis forms around the caterpillar but actually the skin splits and the chrysalis is inside. I can always tell when they are ready to change because their little antennae get all twisted. It seemed like a long morning. I went out at around 8 a.m. to start watching for signs of the change. I was getting anxious because my son had a doctor's appointment at 9:30 and I didn't want to miss it. Doodle was very restless and there was a lot of movement but no twisted antennae.
June 11, 2010: This is Doodle's skin after he shook it off and it fell to the ground. You can still see his face, antenna and his legs.
June 11, 2010: This is the top of the chrysalis. There are a couple of black dots at the top. If this were a female, there would be a line in the middle of the dots. Since there isn't a line, this means that Doodle is a boy.
June 13, 2010: A couple of days later. After an hour or so their chrysalis hardens and turns shiny and green. In the photo below you can see that the plant where Doodle made his chrysalis has wilted and is almost dead. Time to remove him and put him somewhere else.
June 18, 2010: I have removed Doodle from his wilted and dead milkweed plant and hot glued him to a nice stick. The chrysalis must be in a place where the butterfly can hang free of any obsticles so that his wings can dry properly. It really should be any day now. If you look closely you can see the lines in his wings as well as a body forming. The body is the dark area in the front lower part of the chyrsalis. I sure hope Doodle cooperates and comes out while I'm home. I have Monday off so I don't have to be back to work until Tuesday afternoon.
June 19, 2010: Tomorrow we will have a butterfly! You can already see his wings changing colors inside of the chrysalis and I have no doubt that tomorrow we will welcome Doodle the butterfly into the world. His transformation will be complete.
June 20, 2010: Today is the day! As you can see by the photo below, today is definitely the day that Doodle will make his appearance into the world! The first butterfly of the season is always exciting, although each and every one that I get to set free is just as exciting for me.
June 20, 2010: Below is a series of photos that show Doodle emerging from his chrysalis and becoming a beautiful Monarch butterfly! You can see the chrysalis begin to crack. I only had to wait an hour and a half for this, as opposed to the 5 1/2 hours I waited for him to form his chrysalis. Thank you Doodle LOL! I probably snapped another 200+ pictures but narrowed it down to a few that showed the entire process. It probably only takes a total of 3 minutes for him to come all the way out, but another couple of hours for his wings to fill with fluid. When he first comes out his wings are tiny and crumpled but within 10 minutes or so they are fully formed. It takes him a couple of hours for his wings to dry. This gives me plenty of time to take him around my yard and set him on various flowers to get a great shot of him. 
June 20, 2010: Wasn't that exciting?! We now have a fully formed male butterfly! You can tell he is a male by the two dots on his wings, near the bottom of his body. The female doesn't have these dots and the lines on her wings are also thicker than the male. After about an hour and a half I took Doodle back to my butterfly garden to try and get some pictures. He immediately started feeding on the milkweed flowers. Butterflies drink the nectar with their tongue, which is called a probscis. He cooperated nicely for me and stayed for about 10 minutes before he flew away. In about 4-6 days they are ready to find a mate and start the process all over again. They only live from 2-5 weeks, except for the last batch of the year towards fall. Those lucky butterflies live about 8 months. They fly all the way to Mexico and in the springtime they start the long trip back to do it all again. I sure hope that Doodle's mate comes back to my garden to bless me with some more eggs so that I can do this all summer long. Thank you so much for coming along on this incredible journey with me! Below is Doodle the monarch butterfly! So majestic in all of his glory.
June 14, 2009: The caterpillars (11 total) are now 3 days old. You can see they have grown a bit. The little black dot next to him is a piece of caterpillar poop. For some reason kids are obsessed with the poop, some grownups too LOL. 
July 2, 2008 - Caterpillar egg, ready to hatch, next to the grain of rice. The black portion is it's head ready to emerge from the egg.
July 3, 2008 - The caterpillar coming out of the egg. Right after they hatch the caterpillar is so small it can barely be seen. For these pictures of the egg and the tiny caterpillar, I have my camera set to a macro setting with a screw on cheap set of 4 macro lenses. It grows very fast and eats nothing but milkweed leaves. In about 9 to 14 days it is full grown and about 2" long. The monarch caterpillar has eight pair of legs. The first three pair of legs will later become the butterfly's legs.
July 5, 2008 - Two days old and he is starting to look like a real caterpillar! They shed their skin 5 times during their life as a caterpillar.
July 6, 2008 - Three days old and you can see he is starting to get his antenna!
July 7, 2008 - And again back a bit farther so you can see how big he actually is.
July 8, 2008 - 5 Days old, can you tell which end is the front? BTW, starting now I'm experimenting in shooting in manual mode. 
July 8, 2008 - A fresh new leaf. He is officially bigger than the grain of rice! 
July 9, 2008 - 6 Days old now and I happened to catch him right at the end of shedding his skin. The other end is his head and you can see his antenna are down. A monarch caterpillar sheds its skin up to five times during the larval stage. Almost the same way a snake sheds its skin when its body has outgrown the skin, a caterpillar does the same. A new, larger skin is always waiting under the one that is shed. You can see the skin at the end of the caterpillar's tail in this picture. The caterpillars I have raised generally shed their skin every two days. 
July 9, 2008 - He's way bigger than the grain of rice now.
July 9, 2008 - A bit farther back so you can see his size a bit better. He's still small even though he looks large in the closeups. 
July 10, 2008 - He's officially a week old and he's growing leaps and bounds every day. They are only a caterpillar for 9-14 days.
July 10, 2008 - I think I'll start using a ruler instead of the rice now LOL.
July 10, 2008 - Isn't he just the cutest thing! 
July 11, 2008 - 8 days old. Shedding his skin again! He may only have once more to go, or maybe twice. If you look very closely on his head you can see three tiny dots. Those are his eyes. Weird, huh! The legs at the front of his body(to the left) will become the butterfly's legs.
July 11, 2008 - After he dried off a while. He's really taking shape now.
July 11, 2008 - From a bit farther back.
July 12, 2008 - 9 days old now and I don't think it will be long before he heads to the top to form his chrysalis.
July 12, 2008 - As always, a shot from a bit farther away. 
July 13, 2008 - 10 Days old and either he will shed one more time or he will head to the top very soon. He's pretty big now.
July 13, 2008 - As always, a shot from a bit farther away.
July 14, 2008 - I was right when I said that he would head to the top at anytime.
July 14, 2008 - I missed it shedding it's skin for the last time. I'll try to get one of the others though. I have 12 caterpillars in various stages at the moment. 
July 21, 2008 - About 3:00 pm. It shouldn't be long now. You can see that the chrysalis is starting to become clearer. You can kind of see the veins in the wings if you look closely, and perhaps a bit of the butterfly body at the bottom. 
July 21, 2008 - Just a few hours later at about 9:30 pm and you can see the colors of the butterfly's wings. I am guessing by tomorrow we will have our first butterfly! 
July 22, 2008 - Taken at about 6:30 am. You can see that there is no green left at all this morning and the butterfly will be ready to emerge very soon! Lots of progress just from last night at about 9:30 pm.
July 22, 2008 - About 8:00 am, shouldn't be too long now!
July 22, 2008 - About 8:30 am - We have a butterfly!! I'll let her dry for a bit before I put her in the garden on a flower. You can tell she is a female because the males have one black spot on each wing and the webbing on the wings is much thicker in the females. 
July 22, 2008 - 9:00 am. The process is complete, isn't she just beautiful!
July 22, 2008 - 10:00 am - She is opening and closing her wings to dry them off before she tries to fly for the first time.
July 22, 2008 - 10:00 am - Right after I took this last picture she flew away. What an exciting morning it has been. 
