Raising Book Resources
Raising Hope for the 2022 Monarch Migration- Raise The Migration Results
Raise The Migration is an annual North American challenge to raise monarch butterflies to release for fall’s annual monarch migration. The time has come to share your 2022 experience and raise it forward…
The raising season is coming to an end, so we’d love to hear how many butterflies you released for fall’s annual 2022 monarch migration…and more importantly, what lessons you’ve learned through this amazing raising experience?
If you’ve still got some raising to do, raise on! But please post in the comment box at the bottom of this page after you’ve released your last butterfly.
Every year, I start Raise The Migration in July, but monarchs raised at that time aren’t actually migration generation butterflies…they’re the parents to that amazing generation of travelers.
There’s no way to tell whether butterflies will mate or migrate, but one telltale sign of a migration generation butterfly is its size, which is dependent on how much the caterpillar eats. The first super-sized caterpillars start to form chrysalides around the first week of September in our northern region…
In the garden, you can tell non-migratory butterflies by their worn out wings. Non-migratory males are also more aggressive, chasing off potential competition while seeking out female companionship…migratory monarchs are in sexual diapause and only interested in stocking up on nectar for the long journey ahead.
So how did our Raise The Migration Monarchs fare this season and what lessons did we learn raising forward?
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If you’re interested in a step-by-step guide digital guide with free updates (before each monarch season begins in spring) please check out the monarch raising guide by clicking this butterfly photo:
For anyone who purchases the guide (or any other item) from Monarch Butterfly Life, you will be invited to our closed facebook group where you can discuss raising monarchs with other raisers and post your photos.
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Here are Raise the Migration results from the past eight seasons:
2021- 86% Survival Rate
2020- 82% survival rate
2019- 81% survival rate
2018- 93% survival rate
2017- 100% survival rate
2016- 96% survial rate
2015- 96% survival rate
2014- 90% survival rate
2013- 100% survival rate
As you can see from the results, this raising system is consistently producing healthy monarchs to help support the struggling monarch population.
Raise The Migration 2022 Results
Caterpillar Escapes
By keeping monarch eggs and baby caterpillars in sealed food containers, and raising larger caterpillars in the mesh cages, we never lose caterpillars.
I think the closest we have come was two years ago when I forgot to close a cage door and found a caterpillar crawling on top of the cage. 🐛 😱
Unexplained Caterpillar Deaths
None in 2022
Caterpillar Diseases and Parasites?
None in 2022
Accidental Deaths?
None in 2022
Chrysalis Problems
None in 2022
Butterfly Eclosure Issues
None in 2022
Final Results
As you may know, we moved to a new location and we're starting to plant our perennial butterfly garden this fall 2022, so we raised very few monarchs this summer. However, we did have some wayward common milkweed plants, so we raised just a couple, but we raised them well. 😊
Our totals are from all eggs that have successfully hatched. We don't count eggs that were parasitized outside or monarchs brought in as caterpillars because they could have parasites too.
2 monarch butterflies emerged from their chrysalides between August 28th and August 31:
0 accidental death (butterfly fall)
0 disease or parasite issues
0 unexplained deaths
0 healthy males
2 healthy females
100% survival rate
Lessons Learned?
I think the biggest lesson I learned this year had nothing to do with raising monarchs. 2022 was a year of extreme change for my family and raising butterflies was put on hold so we could focus on more important things, but that's life! I'm hoping to have more time for gardening and raising monarchs again next year.
My biggest raising lesson this season was that placing cages under the protection of trees works well in rain storms...the chrysalides went though a couple heavy rainstorms and didn't even start to come loose inside the cage. Still, I prefer raising in a porch that's 100% free of extreme weather. We are planning to raise monarchs in a new gazebo next season...
Migration Memory 2022
This is our first year with a new garden, and we have yet to make it our own. However, there have been a few highlights to the season:
- an abundance of phlox in shades of pink/white attracted many giant and tiger swallowtails, and hummingbird moths
- One night at dusk we went out and saw about a dozen large white-lined sphinx moths nectaring on the phlox...it was magical, and one night only
- Large flowered zinnias were the monarch favorites with a limited menu
- 6 Mexican Sunflowers (tithonia rotundifolia) purchased from a nursery, seem to have hybridized with (tithonia diversifolia) which was a POOR substitute for attracting monarchs and the first flower is yet to bloom ⌛️🦋🇲🇽
I hope you enjoyed reading about my Raise The Migration '22 results and lessons learned raising monarchs through the butterfly life cycle .
And now, I'd love to hear about your experience...
Share Your Results?! ✍️
Please share your results below by letting us know how many monarchs you released to help boost the struggling monarch population…remember to include your location.
More importantly, please share the most valuable lesson(s) you learned about raising monarch butterflies, that you believe can help others raising forward.
Thank you for helping to Raise the Migration in 2022
204 comments
Chula Vista CA 2022 year I’ve had 4 successful births. 😊 I’m learning about what to do to keep predators at bay. Have a lot of problems with wasps picking up off caterpillar babies t
Just found 3 more Monarch cats. I have raised three batches so far in South Louisiana. Also found tiny Giant Swallowtail instars. I keep each species on different plants—the best I can. I was never planning to raise any butterflies but the Butterflyweed plant (just one) I bought turned out to have eggs, I bought a mesh cage, and raised 8 beautiful butterflies. I was hooked! Two more generations later, I had released 21adults. When the last generation ate my plants down to sticks. I found more plants only to come home to chrysalises at top of my cage.
This retired middle school science/art teacher has been delighted. Now to get the last three grown and out the house! This website has been so helpful as well as some butt rely raising videos on YouTube. 👍😄
I am in the final push now. Finding TONS of eggs for the past couple of weeks. Here in the Chicago area there seemed to be a dirty of eggs for almost three weeks, followed by the mother load (pun intended)! I’ve released 16 adults and have another 68 in the pipeline.
I would absolutely love it if someone developed an app for daily tracking of eggs, larvae,, chrysalides, and adults.
Early in the season, I wrote Tony an email concerning tainted milkweed purchased to feed over 50 eggs laid by weathered monarchs heading north. This was from a native nursery. I lost all of them to pesticide poisoning. Then come to find out the neighbor next door heavily sprayed herbicide along the fence area on my side only (photos to prove) that not only did it affect most of the milkweed, spice bushes and rue through herbicide drift, but it ended up killing dozens of monarchs, spicebush swallowtails, black swallowtails. It visibly stunted the growth of plants 20 feet into my yard compared to the other unaffected part of the yard. Any eggs laid did not hatch or died shortly after. It was devastating. I usually raise 100-150 a season, this year a dozen. I say all this to worn people of the insidious issue of pesticide/herbicide poisoning. Heartbreaking season, I ended up covering up all host plants and cutting back nectar plants. Few butterflies of any kind visited my huge garden. Hope others had better luck. From what I have been reading, trouble might be ahead. I visited Mexico this year to witness millions of monarchs hanging from trees and flooding the air during the warm parts of the day. It was very emotional to my surprise. It gives me the impetus to forge ahead growing milkweed during the winter and reconfiguring my yard for next year. Hope springs eternal.
After looking all summer, I found only one egg among my milkweeds and had only seen , on average, one Monarch per week until last Mon… I found 7 eggs! two days later discovered 9 more!!! The single egg has since, turned to a handsome chrysalis and I’m waiting for the butterfly to emerge. I have 9 baby cats and am awaiting the remainder eggs to hatch. What had started out to be a disappointing year has become much better, but I’m concerned about the lateness of these happenings and the lack of the many butterflies most of the summer. I believe that the eggs I have found were laid by very few individuals ( maybe only one or two) and the population continues to dwindle.