Today, I started capturing the wild monarch adults which will produce eggs for late August and early September.
I find monarchs are surprisingly hard to catch with a net--they have good eyesight and quickly dodge a well-aimed swipe. Once netted, they can often escape before you can turn the net sideways to close it.
I have about 10 blazing star (Liatris) plants in my garden, which monarchs love for nectar. On Liatris, the monarchs are so intent on feeding that I can pick them off the flowers with my fingers if I move very slowly. Catching them by hand is as effective as using a net but is safer for the monarchs.
Between 9:30 am and 4:00 pm, I was able to capture 4 females and 5 males, all without using a net. I will need to capture about 20 females to have 4-5 good layers. Females can lay hundreds of eggs (the observational record is 1300), but many that I capture now won't become layers for our program. About half of the females I capture will be the migratory form, unable to reproduce until spring. A few may have the OE parasite, and if lightly infected, will be released. A few may escape when I enter or exit the breeding tent. A few might become weak through injury, illness, or failing to learn to feed in captivity. A few might already be "elderly" and nearly out of eggs.
Still another challenge is getting them to delay laying until the start of school--I've never found an egg in the wild after Aug. 31. Bad weather--cold and rainy--can really disrupt Monarchs for Kids, causing the butterflies to become inactive. Luckily, no such weather is forecast for the next 5 days, so I should be able to capture enough butterflies. But bad weather later could disrupt egg production. So I constantly worry about the program and develop backup plans to ensure success.
Why capture males? I wind up capturing some males because I can't always identify the sex of a butterfly before I bag it. The males are still useful because some of the females I capture may not have mated yet. Moreover, wild females mate multiple times, each time receiving a bit of nutrition along with sperm from the male. After females have mated in captivity a few times, I separate them to a tent without males so they won't be partying all the time and "distracted" from laying.
If you go to a place with many monarchs like the prairie at Odana Golf Course, 90% of them may be males. I suspect that males congregate at places with massed milkweed and wildflowers because these are good places for finding virgin females. But these are also places where predators of adults and especially eggs and caterpillars are more common. So females that are already mated and laying eggs probably disperse more widely, laying in small patches of milkweed where the eggs are more likely to survive. That's why I capture the females in my garden.
After capture, I put the butterflies in a small camping tent and let them get used to their new surroundings. As evening of the August 20th approached, I began to offer the captive butterflies a q-tip soaked in honey water. About half extended their proboscus to sip the honey, and one even began to feed from an artificial flower when I transferred him there (while he clung to the q-tip).
Over a few days, they will all become tame and used to feeding in captivity. I'll keep track of who is feeding successfully, who has mated, and who is showing interest in milkweed (a sign of motivation to lay). Eventually, most of them will fly to the artificial flowers on their own--and I'll make sure each butterfly feeds twice a day.
As the start of school approaches, I'll leave stalks of milkweed in the tent with hopes that they lay. With luck, I can get 100-200 eggs a day. I need to know your preferred date to receive eggs, so I know when to offer the milkweed stalks. Obviously, I can't provide eggs to everyone at once!