PROFESSIONAL BUTTERFLY FARMING PART II Advanced Butterfly Breeding & Production Techniques Workshop Article 5.8

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2 PROFESSIONAL BUTTERFLY FARMING PART II By Nigel Venters 1. An introduction and the aim of this paper. This paper is aimed at showing you that you don t need to have a huge area of land or extensive breeding space and flight-houses to be successful in this business. There is no reason why you can t produce thousands of release butterflies in a small property with minimal garden space. However, those of you who have plenty of land may like to consider the efficiency of breeding butterflies in a different way, in which case this method can help you! This paper aims to show a step by step approach to breeding many different species of butterflies in commercial numbers, in a small space and with very little effort and work required. In my opinion there is no better way of breeding Monarchs, for example, than by using the Max Monarch method. Many other butterfly species can be bred in exactly the same way, just by using the correct host-plants. I like to use as natural process as I can, and this brings me the results I need. Having said that, there are occasions when another approach with some other species is more efficient. This is also true for breeding Monarchs: you can easily adapt this process to successfully breed Monarchs if you give some thought to the host-plant that you use. So just consider the following information, and then decide which method suits you best! Healthy Host-plants and box-breeding. I have discussed the need for providing growing healthy host-plants in an earlier paper, and this is a vital point that can determine success or failure. I also mentioned that almost all disease is self-inflicted by the breeder. Many harmless bacteria, which naturally occur on the larval skins, never become a problem in healthy breeding conditions. So I have to say again, to reinforce this point: airflow and healthy, fresh-growing host-plants are vital to success. The normally harmless bacteria will soon take advantage in poor breeding conditions. Reduced airflow, cramped, wet conditions and wilting host-plant will stress your larvae. This is a recipe for disaster, as the bacteria will start to overwhelm your larvae and kill them! This often results in breeders asking, But where did the disease come from? So now you know! Page 1 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

3 One of the biggest problems in captive breeding is using boxes (or Totes as some folk call them). Plastic boxes need an airflow, but unfortunately they are also terrible for condensation build-up. You obviously can never put a plastic box in the sunshine, as the heat build-up kills everything in no time! One major problem can be wilting host-plants. Even when presented in bottles of water, many collapse in no time. For some that do last a few days, you also need to be aware that the increase of water uptake by the plants can result is severe larval diarrhoea and the increased stress to larvae that we all try to avoid! This is the downside of breeding in boxes; the next section shows how to overcome these problems. Successful breeding, using boxes. Firstly you need to get rid of plastic boxes, they are unhealthy environments for breeding larvae and you will suffer by using them. Fortunately there is a great alternative available, and that is Styrene boxes. I know I have discussed the benefits of Styrene boxes before in this Workshop, but to reinforce the point it seems sensible to me to mention it again here in this paper. There is a huge difference between Styrene boxes and plastic boxes, and one of the main advantages is the insulation provided by the Styrene. Styrene has some special properties, which include: 1. You can place Styrene boxes all day long in full sunshine; the heat build-up is minimal, and the butterflies thrive and lay eggs continually. There is no way you could do this in a plastic box! 2. The insulating properties of Styrene will eradicate completely any condensation build-up within the box. Condensation is a huge problem in plastic boxes. 3. Styrene is not affected by bleach, alcohol, or (if you use it) Milton sterilizer. I clean out the boxes after each use using a nylon kitchen brush. I then spray my sterilizing solution over the whole inside and outside of the box, and then put them in cool, dark place to avoid the solution drying out too quickly. This results in a better sterilization. 4. Styrene does stain, and you may get unsightly stains within your Styrene boxes. However, this does not concern me; after sterilization these stains are inert and do not host any bacteria or disease. 5. Roughly every 6 months I fill my Styrene boxes up to the top with a bleach solution and leave them overnight. This bleaches them back to white and removes all of the stains. Page 2 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

4 6. My styrene boxes are made for me to my own design. They are 18 inches tall by 18 inches long and 14 inches wide. They need to have a one inch (2.5cm) thick Styrene to be totally effective. 7. The design that I use also enables me to stack boxes that are not in use. You can see my design later in this paper. Fortunately Styrene boxes are cheap! One friend contacted me to say that she found similar boxes in a dollar store in the US, at a fraction of the price I pay for them! Determining suitable host-plants for box breeding. Before I take you through a step-by-step production process, I need to explain a few points about suitable host-plants to use in these Styrene boxes. There are, of course, many different host-plants that can be used to breed our butterflies. Some of these host-plants behave quite differently to others when cut and placed in water. We can probably never achieve fully natural conditions, but a small selection of host-plants actually do well when cut and placed in water. These behave quite differently to most other plants; they, will not only stay fresh and thrive in water, they will actually root. It would be well worth your time to try some of the host-plant option where you live. Here are some indications of what to use and how to choose! As I mentioned before, you can breed just about all butterflies using the Styrene box system, but you do need to do a little homework on the host-plants. I have used this method for Red Admirals, all of the Tortoiseshells, Mourning Cloaks, all of the Longwings, and the Painted Ladies. Eventually I even worked out how to breed Monarchs using this system! Here are some of the options I have found to work well. Experimenting with different host-plants standing in water has enabled me to determine how best to keep them in perfect condition for the larvae to feed on. Red Admirals and Tortoiseshells. The real problem here is that these species feed on Stinging Nettles. Cut Nettles last for a few days only, and they wilt quite quickly. Cut Nettles tend to take up an excessive amount of water, and this can present problems when breeding these species, causing diarrhoea. However, in experiments I found that, as long as I managed to get a small amount of Nettle roots, things changed! Nettles when first dug or cut will wilt quickly, but if you keep them out of the sunshine, they surprisingly pick up and revive after around 24 hours. You just need to manage a production system here and you will find box breeding very effective. It is interesting to note that, as long as you have some roots on the nettle, it does not take up too much water and the diarrhoea problem does not occur! Page 3 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

5 Mourning Cloaks. Mourning Cloaks do best on Willows (Salix species). The strange fact is that many cut Willows soon wilt in water. If you just leave them in water, after wilting and losing their leaves they will root! In experiments to try and solve this problem, I tried many different Willow species. The best I found was Salix caprea (Sallow), which seems to be able to cope with being cut and placed in water. The leaves stay fresh for ages (or until eaten!). Sallow is found in the US and many other places in the World, but it originates in Europe. The Longwings. Although grouped as Longwings (Heliconiinae family), breeding this family of butterflies differs quite a bit. The deep tropical forest species can live for 6 to 9 months as adults. Their strategy is to lay a few eggs each day rather than laying a large number of eggs in a short time. On the bright side, many of this group are, in fact, the easiest butterflies in the World to breed huge numbers with minimal effort by you! It has always surprised me why butterflies like the Gulf Fritillary are not often used more often for releases. This butterfly is just so easy to breed in Styrene boxes in huge numbers, with almost no effort and very little chance of disease. One reason is probably that USDA restrictions may make this butterfly a more local, or a Within State, release butterfly. Many folk find Gulf Fritillaries difficult to breed, mainly because the host-plants are Passiflora vines. Following this section I will show a step by step breeding approach for success with this species. However, do remember this is really the same for all species I mention here! Swallowtails. Here we do have a little problem to overcome; but relax, it can be done! The problem with Swallowtails is their host plants. For example, the Black Swallowtail uses host-plants in the Umbelliferae family (Queen Anne s Lace, Fennel, Dill, etc.), and the Giant Swallowtail prefers host-plants from the Orange/Lemon (Citrus) tree family. Unfortunately these plants quickly wilt in water. However, I have grouped these species together here as there is a single host-plant that is a perfect host-plant for both these species. It has an amazing ability to remain fresh in water and (unless eaten!) it will even root in water. This is garden Rue (Ruta gravelolens), a plant that is well worth considering. Painted Ladies. It is widely known that a very efficient way of breeding Painted Ladies is on artificial diet. However, if you can grow the host-plants, there is no reason why you can t produce 100 s of adults in Styrene boxes. Cut Malva lasts quite well in water, but again, like nettles, a small amount of root on each stem makes a huge difference. Again you will see an initial wilting after cutting, but kept in the shade this plant will recover by the next morning. Page 4 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

6 Monarchs. Many of us that have bred Monarchs on cut host-plant will immediately notice that Milkweed is not tolerant of being cut. It wilts in no time. This life can be extended by placing in water, but it still doesn t last very long. It seems such a waste that much Milkweed is thrown way uneaten because it has become too wilted to be a suitable food for the larvae. It took me much experimentation to overcome this problem, and the solution is already mentioned under my paper max Monarch 2. The answer is by using the vine that I suggested as an alternative host-plant: Araujia sericifera. This vine is a virulent grower and produces many thick leaves which are perfect for Monarch larvae to feed on. The main advantage is that this plant is happy when cut and the stems placed in water. It is one of those plants that are either eaten or, given long enough, will even root in water, and a huge amount of food is available for feeding your larvae for each stem cut. So here is another option for you to consider when breeding your Monarchs. In General. In this paper I can only comment on some of the most popular butterfly species that are being bred. However, as I work on life histories of the many butterfly species that many folk ignore I can say that there are many times I have to resort to box breeding to observe the lifecycles. The opportunities here are endless, you just need to apply the system and it will work for you regardless of what species you are trying to breed. But please don t think this is a better method than the Max Monarchs system, because it is not! It is just a useful alternative that you may like to choose to breed healthy butterflies in a smaller amount of space. Cannibalism. Cannibalism can be a problem. However, as I have said before, many of the commercial butterflies that we breed are not particularly cannibalistic. The real reason this happens is that larvae produced in crowded conditions will start to run out of food. It is a desperate attempt to survive. Having said that, some of the non-commercial butterflies are natural cannibals! Many of the small Blues (Lycaenids) and some of the Whites (in particular Anthocharis species) are natural cannibals. They make a point of searching out competitors on the host-plant and eating them to avoid competition. This is mainly due to the fact that the host-plants are usually small and cannot sustain more than one larva per plant! As a rule of thumb, you will find that cannibalism is non-existent in gregarious species and rare in most other species that we breed. Problems will mainly be encountered with some Swallowtail species and Monarchs, and then only when the host-plant is running out. Page 5 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

7 Gravid females. Before I give a step by step approach to show the box breeding method, I need to clarify a point. The start of this process begins with gravid females. Although an amazing number of butterflies will actually pair in closed box conditions, it is a lot safer to start with gravid females that have been paired in a pop-up cages first. Once paired, it is amazing just how freely the females will lay in closed-box breeding conditions. An illustrated step by step guide to using Styrene boxes to breed your butterfly livestock. Often pictures of a process can be easier to understand than a thousand words of description, so I have carefully gone through this process, taking many photos. Some may seem a bit simplistic to you, but I wanted to produce a definitive paper that is completely clear and avoids any confusion. You may well come up with better ideas yourself if you adapt this system to your own breeding set-up. This next section should at least be clear to you, and describes the current process that I am using! The species I have chosen to illustrate here as an example of using this process, is the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae). All butterfly species follow the same process, differing in host-plants only, but a Passion vine feeder like the Gulf Fritillary is difficult to breed using sleeves or in cages. Vines are almost impossible to sleeve. While you can easily breed Gulf Fritillaries on growing Passion flower vines or growing vines in pots using the Max Monarchs method, the Styrene box method makes the whole process much easier. Firstly let us consider how long each process takes to achieve the emerged adults. This will enable you to judge for yourself the efficiency of this process. It is important to point out that the only time I touch this livestock during the whole lifecycle is at the gravid female stage where I hand-feed the gravid females. From this point on, eggs are laid and the larvae develop, the pupae form unaided. Only when the final emerged adults arrive do I have to take action to deal with my stock. Step 1. The Styrene box and the water bottle. In part 1 of this Workshop, I briefly described the benefits of using Styrene boxes, as part of an efficient breeding process. I also mentioned that plastic boxes, or totes as they are known in the US, can be very hard to work with and take a lot of time and effort to make them work. Much of this work is completely eliminated by using Styrene boxes. Page 6 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

8 The Styrene boxes. A little repetition here from part 1 of this Workshop. Styrene boxes have very special properties, which are quite different to plastic boxes. The main difference is their insulation factor, and this a great advantage! With an adequate airflow created by cutting the lid and sticking on parasitoid-proof netting, you have a perfect environment for your larvae without the constant worry of condensation build-up that you find in plastic boxes. Condensation within a box is a killer! These Styrene boxes are 18 inches (46Cms) tall, by 18 inches (46Cms) by 14 inches, (36Cms) I cut out the top and replace it with netting as shown. Be careful with the glue you use to seal the netting to the lid as any solvent glue will melt the Styrene. I had to have these Styrene boxes made for me here in Argentina, and they cost me about $5 each. However, I have since been informed that you can get an almost identical Styrene box from US Dollar stores for a fraction of this price! To make this system work, you will need a good number of these boxes depending on your projected output. Fortunately my design allows them to be stacked nested inside each other when not in use, which is a space saver! A few additional points here: Styrene boxes do get stained during their use, but they are easy to wash out just like a plastic box. However, you will still see some stains remaining on the white Styrene. This does not bother me too much as I am far more worried about pathogen infections than stains. After each use, I wash the boxes clean and then sterilize them. Any remaining stains are then purely a discoloration in the box and not infective. Every 6 months or so, I soak the boxes in a bleach solution overnight. This brings them back to sparkling white again. Page 7 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

9 Styrene is not affected by bleach solution (it does not melt!). Similarly you can freely spray Milton solution or neat alcohol into these boxes and the Styrene remains unaffected. Step 2. Preparing the Styrene box set-up for the gravid females. Just to reinforce an important point here, do remember that to make this system work really efficiently for you, you do have to consider the host-plants that you use. This will, of course, vary depending on which butterfly species you are breeding. For maximum efficiency, use a host-plant that not only does not wilt in water, but actually grows and, unless eaten by your larvae, will actually root in water. Don t be discouraged by the host-plant aspect, you can also use this system for host-plants that only last a few days in water if you have to. It just means more work by you to keep the host-plant fresh. See the process and decide if it will help you. One thing is for sure, it will save you a lot of space regardless of the species of butterfly you chose to breed. Here are the basics for inside the Styrene box. 1. A wide-based plastic water bottle. (The wide base prevents it from tipping over) 2. A rough-cut Styrene lid: I use the bottle top, mark around it and cut out with scissors. (Thin Styrene) 3. Duct tape to hold the lid in place, after filling with water, I then tape down the other side. 4. Sharp ended scissors. I have found that these work best to make the holes through the Styrene lid through which to push the hostplant stems. 5. A large syringe. Plants will use up the water. I have found it easiest to use a syringe to inject water through a small hole in the Styrene lid to keep the bottle topped up with water, rather than disturb the set-up by opening the lid. The photo above hopefully explains in detail how I first approach the host-plant setup. One point worth stating is that larvae are fairly stupid, and will wander down and drown themselves unless you have a good seal against the water. Styrene actually seals itself against the stems, and I have found pointed scissors to be the best way of making holes in the lid at the correct size to push the host-plant stems through. Page 8 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

10 Step 3. A second netted top. Before I add my gravid females to this box (shown in step one) I need to add a separate netted top. Why? Well, butterflies are a little odd in captivity, and while they are very careful in the wild to only lay on the correct host-plants, in captivity we have to accept that they do not behave in the same way. In this set-up, many butterfly species will lay eggs on the netting at the top of the cage. While many eggs will also be laid on the host-plants inside the cage, it is a waste not to take advantage of the eggs laid on the netting. This separate netted top, is pinned to the inside of the box lid, and is only there to ensure that you can trap these eggs and deal with them efficiently with no losses! Here is what I do to solve this problem. A second netting, for the top of the Styrene box. Inside the lid of my Styrene box, I pin some open, widegauge netting. Widegauge netting helps with airflow! The gravid females can lay eggs on this netting, and not on the actual fixed Parasitoidproof netting at the top of the box. After my butterflies have finished laying, I remove this extra netting with the all the eggs laid on it and lay it inside the Styrene box directly over the host-plant. This gives a very easy access to the hatching larvae to find their host-plant. (If you look very closely at this picture, you may actually see a few eggs on the netting.) As the eggs change colour they become difficult to see, but I can say there are more than 100 eggs on this netting. Page 9 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

11 Step 4. Setting up the boxes. Setting up the Styrene boxes is simple. Place the water bottle in the bottom of the cage and add the host-plant, making sure you have poked the stems well down into the water through the Styrene lid. Now may be a good time to see how much work has been involved here to breed these butterflies. This excludes the time you have taken to prepare your Styrene boxes, which can be used again and again. Time expended so far! We have prepared the water bottle, filled it with water, cut out a thin Styrene lid and stuck it in place with Duct-tape. We have also cut a few stems of Passiflora caerulea, and poked them through the styrene lid of the bottle, and then placed them in the bottom of the Styrene box. Total time 20 mins. Next we have fed our gravid females on the peg system, total time, (including setting up the system to feed) 10 minutes. So far, a total of 30 minutes. Here is a photo of the set-up as it should be at this stage, the styrene box, with hostplant in a bottle and the gravid females added. If you prepare the females early in the morning they will not attempt to fly, which makes life easier for you! Just before we shut the box, the lid is on the left with a single Gulf Fritillary. If you look into the box, you may be able to make out two more Gulf Fritillaries awaiting the sunshine! Page 10 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

12 Step 5. Feeding the gravid females. It is important to stress just how easy this system is, and how it removes endless hours of work by you when breeding large numbers of butterflies. We have now got the set-up ready to introduce the gravid females to lay their eggs. Now we have to consider feeding the gravid females. If you really want to, there is no reason why you can t put flowers in a separate pot alongside the host-plant. I never do this, as the adults will lay on these flowers regardless of the fact they are not host-plants. This means wasted eggs! I hand-feed the adults on my peg system the morning before I add them to the Styrene box to start laying eggs. I only ever use around 3 or 4 Gulf Fritillary females in a single box, as in this system they are prolific layers. After a few days of egg laying, and unless I want to start another box for more eggs, I just set the females free. If you would like a quick reference back to my artificial nectar formula, you will find it in paper 5.4. of this Workshop: Swallowtails in pop-ups and sleeves. To me, the main benefits of using a single, high-impact feed every day are timesaving and general high efficiency. Hand feeding a few gravid Gulf fritillary females on the peg system. After a few minutes they are ready to be put into the Styrene box, and will last all day without further feeding. Just remember to hand mist with water a few times a day as you pass these boxes and all will be well! Page 11 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

13 Note: Butterflies will, of course, feed themselves. However, I use my peg system because I can ensure that all my gravid females are well fed! Butterflies are opportunist feeders and never stay too long in the same place to feed. This makes sense: stay too long in one place and get eaten by a predator! However, using the peg system I have control over when they are next going to get fed. If I see the tongue start to retract I can easily unroll the tongue once more to start it feeding again. They always do start to feed again, and this is food that they would not have if they were just allowed to feed themselves! Step 6. Egg laying and the work involved. So now we have the gravid females fed and inside the Styrene box with host-plant. The next step is sunshine! Remember that the Styrene box has different properties to a plastic box: all day in a plastic box in full sunshine is certain death; all day in a Styrene box in full sunshine, and NO PROBLEMS! Normally when using pop-up cages I like to separate egg-laying into either single or two days laying at the most. This ensures that almost all of the developing larvae feed-up together, and there is no great difference in size or development between the larvae. However, this is not important in this system, and all will become clearer on this issue later in this paper. You can leave the females for several days laying eggs, just stop when you have enough eggs! The set-up in full sunshine. Gravid females are inside the box laying eggs. It doesn t really matter just how high your temperatures are, the Styrene box copes with this, and prevents a huge heat build-up inside the box. Note the hand-spray bottle. Each time I walk past the box, I give the top a good misting! Misting not only helps stop desiccation, but also encourages the females to lay eggs. Page 12 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

14 A quick recap on time and effort spent so far. We spent 30 minutes setting this system up. Now we must allow for, say, three more days of hand-feeding the adults in 10-minute sessions. We have now spent one hour, and have several hundred eggs laid! Step7. Dealing with the eggs and young larvae. After the eggs have been laid, you can relax and do something else. The eggs will take 4 or 5 days to hatch, and as the host-plant is it perfect shape you don t have to do anything more until several more days have passed! Below is a photo showing the process with hatched larvae feeding. While they are still small, they don t eat very much. Just keep a general eye on the box, and after about 10 days in total (from the first eggs were laid) you need to take action again. A photo of inside the box. The larvae have hatched and are feeding well. This is your time to relax (or set-up other boxes to breed more!) It takes several days before the larvae make an impact on your healthy host-plant, as they are still quite small. Note: Now is a good time to check the water level within the bottle. If necessary inject some water through a hole in the round Styrene lid using the large syringe. This avoids disturbing the larvae, especially those that are changing their skins. Page 13 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

15 Step 8. The larvae in their final instars. OK, this is not a normal photo of how I breed these butterflies! But to show you just how many larvae you can breed in this small space, I decided to let them eat most of their host-plant to be able to take this photo. Normally, as the host-plant is eaten, I just poke some more holes in the bottle lid and add more host-plants. If we look into the box above, there are several hundred larvae and they need hostplant! Don t worry about frass or cleaning them out. You can do more harm than good, as many larvae will be skin changing and if disturbed they will die. However, we can see that now is the time to add more food! Remember that there are very many larvae inside this box, and they are growing bigger and eating more each day. I kept a record of how much time it took me to deal with this until pupation time, including cutting more host-plant stems and poking them through the Styrene lid. Total time was 45 minutes spread over a few days. Do be aware that, at the final stage before pupation, you may need to add host-plant each day depending on just how many larvae you have. Total time to date. So far I have spent just 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach pre-pupation stage for producing more than 200 pupae. Step 9. Dealing with pupae. While the pre-pupae larvae are gathering at the top of the box to pupate, you may still need to add some more host-plant for those that have been slower in their lifecycle. However, 95% of pupae will be formed on the lid of the box. It is at this time is will become clearer to you why I am not so bothered about everything in the box pupating at the same time. As the pre-pupae larvae climb to the box lid, I let the Page 14 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

16 Mother load pupate, and then move the lid with the formed pupae to an empty box, replacing the lid with a new lid. By doing this I can ensure that all of the pupae in a box will emerge within a day or so of each other. Just to show you just how many pupae that you can breed with minimal effort by you, just look at the following photos! Here are 4 photos of a single box batch that I bred. Notice that the first photo shows the mother load of pupae, the second two photos show a great amount of pupae and the last photo show the final, Mother load. Even here, some of the pre-pupae larvae in this photo have still not transformed into pupae yet. Remember at this stage the work is minimal for you - you have little to do apart from checking for progress. Photo 1 the original Mother load of pupae The first take off from the Styrene breeding box, around 85 pupae. These were the first to pupate and many more were to follow. Page 15 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

17 The next 2 lids I took off have around 110 pupae between them. The final (4 th ) lid that I removed from my Styrene box shows many pupae. There are also some pre-pupae larvae, but these will soon pupate of course. This is the second, Mother-load from the box, and finishes the process. This lid shows around 60 pupae and pre-pupae larvae in the 4 th of the lids that I changed during this breeding process. From this single small box I have now produced a total of 250 pupae. Actually it is probably over 260, as I took some off earlier in the process for fast-tracking as I had an order to fill! Page 16 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

18 I hope I have now managed to convince you that, by following this sequence, with a total effort by me of about 1 hour 45 minutes I have managed to produce approx. 250 Gulf Fritillaries. Remember that it doesn t really matter what species you choose to breed, as long as you choose a host-plant that can thrive when cut and placed in water. (After-note, this breeding cycle actually resulted in 274 perfect adults!) A quick peek at another species! An example of the first lid I took off my box when breeding Monarchs in exactly the same way. Three more lids followed as usual, with many more pupae. Monarchs have a larger larva, so I keep the numbers down to about 100 pupae in total per box. The process is exactly the same as described above for Gulf Fritillaries, except that I used a small growing Milkweed to get eggs, then changed to Araujia sericifera vines which do not wilt in the water bottle. To recap: it doesn t matter which species you want to breed, and don t worry if you don t have the space that the bigger breeders have. You can compete with them, you just have to adapt to the space you have available. Step 10. Emerging the adults. This is simple and needs no photos: I leave the individual boxes with the pupae in place. Why spend time taking the pupae off and hanging them up to emerge when you don t need too? Believe me it is better not to touch your livestock! I keep the boxes in a shaded position, and just wait for the emergence to start. As the larvae on each lid pupated within a day or so of each other, they will also emerge at the same time. I don t do anything when the first few butterflies emerge, I just give the top of the cage a misting twice a day, and wait until they have all emerged. To open the box full of butterflies, I put the box inside a large pop-up cage and lift the lid. From that point on, you know exactly how to deal with your emerged butterflies! Not much need to say more. Note: It is always assumed that the Monarch is the hardiest release butterfly, but in my view this is not so. I can keep most butterfly species that I breed in a chiller at Page 17 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

19 around 50f, (10c) to 54f (12c) for weeks. You just need to take them out and feed them every week to 10 days. A Fast emergence using heat. For those of you who want to speed up emergence, an easy way to do this is by warming the emergence box. If I need any of my stock to emerge in half the normal emergence time, I adapt a Styrene box to do it. You will have already seen how I do this in previous papers in this Workshop, but on page 20 of this paper I include a photo of the 4 Styrene boxes awaiting the emergence of the pupa. One box has a 20 Watt reptile heat pad in the bottom, which gives a gentle heat inside the box. Twice a day I pour a few small splashes of water inside the box to increase humidity and to help the convection of warmth throughout the box. This ensures that this heated box alone produces adult butterflies in half the normal emergence time. Whether you wish to try this is up to you, I only ever use this method if I am trying to meet an unexpected last-minute order. As I mentioned earlier in these papers, I do try and keep 200 or so butterflies in reserve to enable me to cope with most last-minute orders. However, these butterflies that I keep in reserve are just part of a rolling production line. These are provided for release as soon as I can possibly use them. The reserve butterflies are those that I have bred over and above my current known order levels, and I always send these out first. And, of course, the reserve butterflies change as orders are met and new butterflies are bred. You do need to keep an eye on how you do this. I always keep my butterflies, wellfed and in a chiller, and every box is labelled with the date of emergence and the date they were last fed. This helps me to ensure that, regardless of my orders, either the reserve butterflies are in peak condition for release, or fresh emergence butterflies are available for release - or to take the pace of my reserve stock. Page 18 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

20 Host-plants: you need an awful lot of them! This may seem a little simplistic, but I must stress that you need to grow an awful lot of host-plants to make this happen. Without enough plants you are lost! I managed to dig out of my computer an old photo from when I first arrived here in Argentina and started to set my breeding system in place. This photo shows my stages and wire lines that I had pre-planned to be able to cope with the amount of host-plants I needed to continually breed these butterflies in their 1000 s. Here is my gardener working to start off the production of Passiflora vines. It is hard to see in this photo, but as well as the standing poles I have strung galvanised wires between the trees and along to the right. Several extra lines of Passiflora vines have been planted since then to ensure that I have as much host-plant as I am ever likely to need to breed my Heliconid butterflies! I now rely on huge beds of Passiflora like this photo below to achieve my levels of breeding. This is a bed of Passiflora caerulea one year after planting tiny vines that were produced from cuttings. This is to show you that you can be up-and-running in this process after a single season! Let us review what I achieved here in a very small space. I managed to breed a total of 274 Gulf fritillaries with minimal effort, The total work time to do this was about one and a half hours. Page 19 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

21 Note: I have demonstrated how I breed Gulf Fritillaries, but you can breed whatever species you want to breed using exactly the same system. I have not touched this stock since I fed the original adult gravid females and set them up to lay eggs. The next time I touched the stock was as adult butterflies. How simple is that! OK, more later on holding this stock for release. I do hope this section has given you some cause to think about what we all do. As I have said several times, I do enjoy breeding everything on growing natural host-plants in Pop-up cages. But I have to admit, when you get this system right, Styrene boxes and space-saving can be a great way to breed your butterflies efficiently! Awaiting emergence. The Gulf Fritillary pupae were all bred in the same box, and I split them into more boxes as they pupated. Larvae that pupate together will usually emerge together. The box on the bottom left has a cable that powers the reptile heat pad inside this single box for speedy emergence. The pupae in the other boxes are left to emerge naturally. Page 20 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique

22 Note: Some folk use a box system to breed their butterflies using cut stems with no water. This can be done, but the workload increases enormously. You need to change the host-plants every day, and this increases losses through disturbance. There is a high wastage of wilted host-plants, which just have to be thrown away, and there is the ever present danger of stress-induced bacterial disease. I would not recommend this method, and especially if you are producing large numbers of butterflies. Nigel Venters: May. Part 2. Paper Page 21 By Nigel Venters Butterfly B0utique