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A couple of years ago, the children were each given an Insect Lore Butterfly Garden as a Christmas gift. They were both delighted with their present, and the kit proved to be a fun family project as we watched ten tiny caterpillars feeding, growing and eventually morphing into beautiful butterflies.
As gifts go, it was certainly one of their favourites, and a fabulous way for the whole family to witness the transformation process up close, as well as providing us with the opportunity to handle the butterflies before we released ten more pollinators into the wild.
Here's what to expect:
The kit
Within each box is a habitat (net), feeding pipette, and instruction booklet, plus a voucher to redeem in order to receive the caterpillars.
As butterflies prefer the warmer weather, caterpillars are dispatched between May and September, and, as the whole process takes 2-3 weeks, you're advised to take in to account any holidays or periods of time you'll be away from home for more than a couple of days.
So, at the beginning of June, we logged on to the Insect Lore website www.insectlore.co.uk ,filled in the necessary details, paid the £2.99 postage and waited for our new little friends to arrive.
Caterpillars
Posting days are Tuesday and Friday. When ordering your caterpillars, you have the option to select a specific date, or (as we did) choose the next one available. For us, this happened to be a Friday, and the caterpillars arrived the following Monday.
We received 2 pots housing 5 caterpillars each, plus a Chrysalis Station to hold the lids once the caterpillars had turned into their chrysalis form.
It's important to know the caterpillars have everything they need in the pots, so the lids must not be removed at this stage in case any substances which may harm their development are introduced by mistake.
Timings
Over the next week, we watched as the caterpillars grew, surprised at the difference in size from one day to the next - and how messy their habitat became as they shed their exoskeletons, produced webbing and ate the food.
On day 8 the first signs of the next stage began as the caterpillars crawled to the lid of the pot and formed into a J-shape, before pupating and becoming chrysalides.
By day 10 we had a complete set of chrysalides and, as recommended, we left them for a further 3 days to harden, before moving them to their hatching habitat.
Transferring to the habitat
Moving the butterflies proved trickier than we anticipated. The lids were stuck tight, making it difficult to peel them off gently while trying not to disturb the chrysalides too much.
There was also a large amount of silk strands surrounding the chrysalides, which needs to be removed so the butterflies don't become entangled as they emerge. Pulling this off resulted in a few of the chrysalides falling off the lid, so we simply scooped them up and placed them in the hatching habitat on a piece of kitchen towel.
Plenty of shaking took place - a natural defence mechanism, but the chrysalides were eventually safely transported to their new home.
We have butterflies!
The next stage is expected to take 7-14 days, so it was a lovely surprise when we came downstairs 4 days after moving the chrysalides to discover 2 butterflies had emerged overnight.
Within 48 hours, all 10 butterflies had safely appeared. It's amazing how quickly they emerge and really interesting to watch as they morph from a rather crumpled state to a fully expanded butterfly. To be able to witness the whole process up close, including the fusing of the proboscis (tongue), is absolutely fascinating.
We fed the butterflies, enjoyed studying their behaviour for a while and then decided it was time to release them into the wild as they were becoming rather restless in their habitat.
Bye-Bye Butterflies
Releasing the butterflies was our favourite moment and one we will all remember. They were happy to crawl onto our hands to be gently removed from the habitat, some flew away straight away, others spent time opening and closing their wings before eventually flying off to explore their new environment.
Growing our own butterflies was both interesting and great fun. The whole family enjoyed watching the process, marvelling at the speed with which various stages occur. The children thoroughly enjoyed seeing them emerge and loved being able to hold the butterflies before releasing them.
We can highly recommend this fabulous home project - an added advantage being that once you've got your habitat, you can order more caterpillars and grow your own pollinators over and over again.
Insect Lore Butterfly Kits are available to purchase from Amazon, and if you don't fancy growing butterflies, there are a number of other insect kits available to try.
