So, I recognized it on my parsley (yay!) and Someone (You Know Who You Are) said, oh, it's easy to protect them, just bring it inside, put it in a jar with a stick and some parsley, paper towel over the top so air can get in.

So, I did. Giving fresh parsley every day, cleaning out the debris. So far, so good.



I've been wondering about timing, though, since it is getting toward fall. I read today that some pupae hibernate over the winter, and I also read that, once it pupates, it takes a couple three weeks for the butterfly to emerge UNLESS it's hibernating til spring.

So... Once this pupates, should I introduce it to more outside weather to induce it to hibernate? Or does temperature not have anything to do with that? (I googled some information but can't find much detail.)

Thanks for your help!

Well, I'm not going to do any such thing; I imagine it has some internal mechanism and anyway, at this point there is little difference in outside and inside temps.

Caterpillar is about four times its original size. Gets fresh parsley every day. So far, so good.

So I moved him to a bigger container, where he has more room. The chrysalis formation happened overnight; one day he was in position and then the next morning, there it was.

I have raised lots of BST inside. Now I am in a colder zone than you so keep that in mind. But I never bring any inside past mid August. It takes about 10-14 days for it to turn into a butterfly. Here that would getting to close to frost time this late. Some people do try to keep chrysalis over winter but it is tricky. If it gets to warm they will emerge. There will be no food available for nectar so you have to euthanize the butterfly. But since you are in a warmer area it may have time. In nature they will go make there chrysalis somewhere and hopefully it will survive the winter and they will emerge in the spring. So watch it starting at about 7 days. You should see color changes when it about to emerge. You may even see some wiggling!

It will need room to spread its wings to be able to dry its wings. So do make sure you have it in a large enough container. I always used some cheap storage containers.

Good Luck!

Claudia, thank you! Our first frost date is generally said to be October 30, so I think I'm okay here.

I had read that some of these hibernate naturally; apparently no one knows how to tell if it will do that, or if that information is out there I've failed to find it. I'm not going to try to keep it all winter, though. It should have plenty of room in the container it's in now. (I moved it to something larger once I realized it was going to need more room.)

Kyla, I'm still waiting for my 5 BST chrysalises to eclose. They formed their chrysalises around the same time as the Monarchs. The Monarchs have all eclosed now, but not the BSTs. Hopefully they will emerge soon while all the fall flowers are still in bloom and the days are still pleasant.

Last year, I had a late BST caterpillar who formed a chrysalis and then overwintered that way. I didn't keep him inside because of the warmth in the house--I didn't want him to come out and find no nectar, no mate, etc. He stayed outside all winter, and then in the spring I took his stick out of the mason jar and under the Joe Pye weed. Then I seemed to lose track of his stick. Don't know what ever happened to him.

Okay, well, if this character is too slow, I'll put him outside too, I reckon! But I think he has time yet.

Fingers crossed!

Yeah, if he causes trouble, I'll just send him to your house.

But that means you'd have to make a trip up, transporting him in person! ;-)

Oh, no! By then, he'll be able to fly. I'll just point him in your direction.

maybe it's a girl and she'll lay eggs on my parsley!

Better yours than mine; mine is about used up feeding Mr/Ms Hongry!

Next year I will plant more!

Black Swallowtails love fennel. I had them in all stages for weeks - laying eggs, growing caterpillars, a chrysalis on stems everywhere and finally new butterflies for a while. Until they fluttered off. It was a large fennel and they frequently had it stripped. Here's one of the newly hatched fellows before it flew off. This was in 2012. One of these days I'm going to grow fennel again.

I'm thinking that my BST chrysalises are going to overwinter instead of eclosing this fall. I think the temp in the house gets too cool at night now for them to eclose, and their chrysalises have a tough, woody look instead of a soft look.

Uh-oh.