more eggs

found more eggs out in garden today.

i have to get a butterfly net... not for butterflies... for wasps. i see them out there all over the milkweed. they are eating the eggs.

i collected these few eggs - but i know there are more out there - i just can't find them. she was out there for quite a while fluttering around laying eggs.

i'm having a bit of a dilemma as far as having to kill the wasps...

just born

the eggs are ready to hatch. when she first lays them, they are pale yellow. in about 4 days, they get a small black dot on the top of them - this is the caterpillars head. the little caterpillar will eat a hole through its egg shell and crawl out.

when they are born, they are less than 1/8" long. their first meal will be their egg shell.

you can see the how small they are when born in this picture

egg hunt

i found six eggs yesterday. they are so small - and she hides them really well !

i cut off the leaf the egg is on and place it on a moist paper towel. this is to avoid potential predators, such as ants, wasps or spiders, from eating the eggs.

in about 4-5 days they will hatch.

today, there were two more females out there laying eggs.

in the meantime... i'll go out in the garden and look for more eggs.

the beginning

i found this little egg on a milkweed leaf. after looking up 'monarch butterfly egg' images online... i found out, it was.

this was my first egg. as the weeks went on - i started noticing more and more of these little whitish yellow dots all over my milkweed.

i was so excited that what i had read about - was happening in my yard. the monarchs were coming.

this is their first stage of life... the egg.

close up of egg right before the caterpillar hatched