B and I order caterpillars from Insectlore Europe, watch them turn into chrysalides and wait for butterflies to emerge.

199 – Getting caterpillars through the post

Monday 16 June.  Sunny. 20°C

There’s five weeks left of school term till the summer holidays and we’re ordering caterpillars from insectlore. We’ve done this every year since B was about five. She got one of their butterfly net packs as a birthday present. We’re now on the second one having demolished the first through over use.

It’s a great idea. They send you five baby caterpillars in a pot of food and you watch them eat it and get bigger and bigger. Finally they form chrysalises on the top of the box and, once they’ve all done it and they’re well formed, you take it off the pot and put it in the net cage. A few days later butterflies emerge and you can release them into the garden.

We’re getting them now as we’re not going anywhere for five weeks so won’t miss any of the key stages. For now they’re on the bookshelf in B’s bedroom, waiting for more exciting things to happen.

192 – Checking in on the caterpillars

Monday 23 June.  Cloudy. 18°C

A week in and B suddenly finds the caterpillars again.

B: “MUM!!! Come and see. They’re ENORMOUS”.

They really are. We’ve ignored them all week and they’ve gone from less than a centimetre to about 5 cm and very fat. We suspect they’re growing quicker due to light and sun and make a note to check in on them again before next Monday.

188 – Transferring the chrysalides into the butterfly habitat

Friday 17 June. Sunny. 22°C

It’s a good thing we checked them. By Wednesday all but one of the caterpillars had become chrysalides, hanging from the roof of their pot. The last was in the process of forming. Two days later we’re moving them into the butterfly habitat net ready for transformations… aware it might be a bit quicker than normal in the heat wave due.

There’s only one problem. We’ve got stick insects inhabiting the net. B got them for last years birthday and we’re now on the second generation. B is bored with them but they seem very healthy, growing fast and chomping through a lot of ivy. After some consideration we dig out the old butterfly net from the garage and cover up the holes. We’re going to transfer the stick insects into that one so the butterflies can have the secure one. We reckon butterflies are more likely to escape through gaps.

Moving the stick insects turns out to be a lot more drama than transporting the chrysalides. They are surprisingly sprightly when disturbed and we spend half an hour screaming and chasing them round the kitchen. A few go over the edge of the kitchen cabinets and onto the floor but seem unbothered by this. Amazingly all survive and we turn to the caterpillars.

We undo the top of the pot carefully and gentle remove the silk strands from the chrysalides. As we do one of them starts twitching violently. It keeps twitching all the time we move it into the now clean and empty newer habitat making a bang bang sound against the cardboard stand. Then it stops again. We seal it up and wait to see butterflies emerge.

181 – The butterflies emerge

Thursday 3 July. Cloudy. 21°C

Ten minutes after B heads off to school I hear a noise and notice a butterfly crawling out of it’s chrysalide… Annoyingly it’s joined by 3 others in quick succession. They meander around the cage and their wings slowly unfurl and get straight.

Unfortunately before B gets home from school the kitten finds them. She thinks they’re great. Not seeing the danger I return home to find the enclosure in the sink half filled with water where she’s clearly managed to chase them in. Amazingly all 4 butterflies survive though the 5th chrysalide never hatches. B arrives home to help with the feeding kitten proofing. We put stones in the bottom to weigh it down, add in some buddleia flowers and leaves and melt some sugar in water and drop a bit of that in too. Then we lock them in the spare room to keep them safe – till they’re ready to move on.

179 – Setting the butterflies free

Friday 4 July. Cloudy. 20°C

They’ve been hatched a day and the butterflies are ready to go. B is an old hand at this now. She carefully puts a hand into the net, cupping a butterfly gently and then bringing it out and opening her hand. Some of them fly off straight away. Others linger there for a bit. When she was smaller it would take an hour or so. I remember one, which really didn’t want to fly, being walked down to some buddleia a few streets away. We’ve kept these a little longer and they’re definitely ready. They all power away quickly and we wash out the net to return to the stick insects.