Insect Lore Butterfly Kit

Transfer Chrysalis To Butterfly Housing

At some point they naturally start to gravitate towards the lid of the pot. You’ll notice they’ll be spending more time up the sides and near the lid. You’ll know at this point they are preparing for the next stage of their growth – to turn into a chrysalis. Soon one of them one attach its tail to the fibre mat that is stuck to the lid. This is there so they can easily grip on with their ‘tail’ and hang down. The caterpillar will gradually lower its body and form a sort of ‘J’ shape. It’s at that point they will start to harden and turn into a chrysalis. It may take a day or so for this to happen. Usually they don’t all do this at exactly the same time, so you have plenty of opportunities to observe this process. You may notice on some of the high points down the length of the body, a line of gold highlights once the chrysalis has fully formed. You may need to catch them in the right light to see the gold effect against the drab background colour of the chrysalis. Once the last of your caterpillars has formed a chrysalis, wait a day or so for it to harden off and then carefully prise the lid off to get at the mat. It’s lightly stuck on to the lid, so gently peel it off. Now, either take a safety pin, and pin the mat vertically on the side of the butterfly habitat, or use a paper-clip and shape it so it can hook into the mat and the side of the habitat. The video below shows the paper-clip method: httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUe1GqSsoLc If a chrysalis gets knocked off, or comes loose, just place it on a piece of kitchen paper on the floor of the habitat. Placing a twig vertically nearby will help that butterfly climb higher when it’s ready to pump up its wings. . What happened next? Did I get a butterfly from each chrysalis? Click here to read the next page, when the chrysalis turned into a butterfly.Lee Please let me know how you get on! Use the comments box below at the bottom of the page or contact me. I’ve looked out the best sources for the Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden for the UK and USA, and you can see these below: For the UK: For the US: Please let me know how you get on! Use the comments box below at bottom of the page or use the Contact Form.

Butterfly Hatching

Now I actually didn’t manage to capture film of the emerging butterflies – I’ve never managed it yet with any kit! Luck of the draw I guess, I’ve often come down in the morning to find them already hatched. Very sneaky. But that’s OK. It means you may be able to enjoy that event yourself, instead of watching someone else’s video! Shoot me a line if you managed it and uploaded the video on YouTube. I’ll be interested to see what you managed to capture. At this stage all we need do is wait. You can put a few twigs in the enclosure. Site them so they are vertical. This will allow emerging butterflies to climb the twigs whilst pumping up their wings. Most of them will climb the netting anyway, but providing twigs gives them the choice. Remove any leaves from the twigs – we don’t need them and they will get in the way.   Once you get one or two butterflies emerging, add a shallow container which has a few nectar-rich flower heads (clover flowers are good and can be easily found) in it. You can add drops of a sugar solution made specifically for butterflies to the flower-heads and/or the dish. You’ll see in my video that I did both, although I used a different flower-head from clover. This will allow the butterflies to feed and get stronger before their release into the world. Note: All of you will experience the one thing that freaks many people out – red fluid emerging from all the butterflies! In fact you’ll see it all over the floor of the enclosure and down the sides of the netting. Don’t worry! It’s not blood as most people think. It’s called Meconium and is simply the waste product left over from the metamorphosis – it’s completely normal. Some of this fluid gets outside the enclosure through the netting, hence the reason I suggest you have something underneath and around the enclosure at the time of emergence from the chrysalis (it actually washes off very easily from the enclosure so nothing is spoilt). httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ8RlkTKok8 As I say, the pot as supplied is everything they need to grow and turn into a chrysalis, ready for the next stage of turning into a butterfly. . Did I manage to grow all the butterflies and release them successfully? – Click to see the next stage! Lee . I’ve looked out the best sources for the Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden for the UK and USA, and you can see these below: For the UK: For the US: Please let me know how you get on! Use the comments box below at bottom of the page or use the Contact Form.  

From Caterpillar To Chrysalis

The Butterfly Chysalis Kit – Watching Your Caterpillers Turn Into a Chrysalis Are you ready to receive your caterpillars? Great, let’s do it. You can order your caterpillars for the Butterfly Chrysalis Kit in one of two ways; Sending the Caterpillar Certicate you received inside your Insect Lore Butterfly Garden Kit to the address shown on the certificate, enclosing your shipping payment of [UK:  £2.99 or Europe:  €3.49 or USA:  $5.00], or Fill in the easy online form, including your ‘Caterpillar Code’, and pay by credit/debit card or PayPal. Same prices as above.   The website for UK and Europe is: http://insectlore.biz/ The website for the USA is: http://www.insectlore.com/   In either case you’ll be asked to provide a send date. If you’ve purchased Insect Lore’s Garden Butterfly Kit, then you’ll receive a small cardboard box through the post with your caterpillars inside. Mine took about 2 days to arrive. In other words it arrived two days after the day I specified for it to be sent. Don’t get confused with that bit. You specify the day it is sent from the supplier, NOT the day you want to receive it. So allow 2 or 3 days for it to arrive. Inside the box you’ll find a pot with your five caterpillars inside. Take the pot out carefully. It may be upside down and you don’t want the lid flying off. Depending on their age, the caterpillars may be extremely small! I’m talking about a couple of millimeters! So before you think you’ve been had, and sent an empty pot – look again. Those 5 tiny dots are probably your caterpillars. My recent pot had larger caterpillars, but previous ones I’ve had have been so small as to be almost unrecognisable. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDb-nqIw5NE You can also see this video of the live butterfly chrysalis kit on YouTube. Set the pot down, take a few minutes to watch – you’ll probably see them all moving at some point. Congratulations, you have live caterpillars! Don’t be tempted to take the lid off. You may lose a caterpillar in the process as they often climb high and may be on the lid itself and fall out. The lid is stiff, so a sudden jerk will almost certainly lose them. The pot contains more than enough food for all the caterpillars during their entire stay. The food is that brown stuff at the bottom of the pot. It’s a special formula to keep them fed and happy so they don’t need anything else at this stage. If you are tempted to put food in, it may not be the right food for the caterpillar and they will not eat it. That means it will likely rot in the bottom of the pot causing a health problem for all your caterpillars. You have been warned. Be amazed as the caterpillars grow from a tiny couple of millimetres to a centimeter or two! The growth rate is phenomenal. They achieve a size that is 10,000 to 20,000 …

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