This blog is designed to accompany the content shared for the Raising Red Admirals Butterfly Course. Enrolled students are encouraged to provide any comments, questions, or concerns they have to the group. If you would like to communicate with me directly via email to todd_stout29@hotmail.com
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Welcome to the Raising Red Admirals Butterfly Course
Hi everyone,
Enrolled students are welcome to post any comments, questions, or concerns for this course. Thanks, Todd
Q:Once I start noticing eggs on the leaves, should I replace them with fresh leaves or will they continue to lay on leaves that already have a few eggs? A:They will continue to lay eggs on the leaves that already have eggs in the lab; but not in the wild. That is because the lab is not a natural setup (but I digress). I would recommend harvesting your eggs (removing the leaves with eggs) every day to set them up to hatch. Sometimes flying females can damage eggs already laid; so I like to remove those eggs into a safer environment for them to hatch.
Q:I am feeding them orange slices and watermelon slices. I am going to try to honey water today. A:Butterflies are wonderful and letting us know their nectaring preferences. If your RA butterflies are nectaring orange and watermelons slices, to keep things simple, I would keep doing that.
Q:Can I use honey water on all species of butterflies? A:Yes. Similar to fruits like watermelon, orange, banana etc., honey water works great.
Q:I also learned years ago with painted ladies to add a few drops of soysauce to the sugar water or gatorade. Do you think this is good or bad? A:Yeah, that's the beauty of butterfly feedback, if they use it and thrive on it, they like it.
Q: Why do you keep females in the dark until you're ready to get them to lay eggs is a great question. A: Females sometimes do not feel a strong urge to oviposit right after emerging/mating or right after having been collected in the field. Sometimes this strong urge to oviposit takes a couple of days to build up. So, I recommend keeping them in the dark for say, 72 hours before setting them up to lay eggs. The longer you keep her in the dark, while feeding her regularly, the stronger that itch to lay grows. I coin an expression that "her ovipositor starts to argue with her". I've seen this happen with different genera of butterflies at differing levels. I kinda touched on that in Slide #41; but didn't elaborate that well enough. Forgive the example; but, sometimes we kinda have to go the bathroom. Other times, we REALLY have to.
I've seen that effect on fed females that weren't given a chance to lay eggs, it grows with time. When they're feeling that itch, it's almost like a slingshot effect as to how many eggs they can lay.
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ReplyDeleteQ:Once I start noticing eggs on the leaves, should I replace them with fresh leaves or will they continue to lay on leaves that already have a few eggs?
ReplyDeleteA:They will continue to lay eggs on the leaves that already have eggs in the lab; but not in the wild. That is because the lab is not a natural setup (but I digress). I would recommend harvesting your eggs (removing the leaves with eggs) every day to set them up to hatch. Sometimes flying females can damage eggs already laid; so I like to remove those eggs into a safer environment for them to hatch.
Q:I am feeding them orange slices and watermelon slices. I am going to try to honey water today.
A:Butterflies are wonderful and letting us know their nectaring preferences. If your RA butterflies are nectaring orange and watermelons slices, to keep things simple, I would keep doing that.
Q:Can I use honey water on all species of butterflies?
A:Yes. Similar to fruits like watermelon, orange, banana etc., honey water works great.
Q:I also learned years ago with painted ladies to add a few drops of soysauce to the sugar water or gatorade. Do you think this is good or bad?
A:Yeah, that's the beauty of butterfly feedback, if they use it and thrive on it, they like it.
Q: Why do you keep females in the dark until you're ready to get them to lay eggs is a great question.
ReplyDeleteA: Females sometimes do not feel a strong urge to oviposit right after emerging/mating or right after having been collected in the field. Sometimes this strong urge to oviposit takes a couple of days to build up. So, I recommend keeping them in the dark for say, 72 hours before setting them up to lay eggs. The longer you keep her in the dark, while feeding her regularly, the stronger that itch to lay grows. I coin an expression that "her ovipositor starts to argue with her". I've seen this happen with different genera of butterflies at differing levels. I kinda touched on that in Slide #41; but didn't elaborate that well enough. Forgive the example; but, sometimes we kinda have to go the bathroom. Other times, we REALLY have to.
I've seen that effect on fed females that weren't given a chance to lay eggs, it grows with time. When they're feeling that itch, it's almost like a slingshot effect as to how many eggs they can lay.