The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

Monarch butterflies are on the move heading south on their annual migration. Look closely next time you spot a Monarch and you might see a flash of white against the orange and black pattern of their wings, it very well could be a marked butterfly.

We spotted one last week near Ann Arbor. It was flying and feeding on flowers in the Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

I mentioned in a previous blog how the Monarch population has dwindled. Several groups, professional and amateur alike, are studying Monarchs trying to learn more about their behavior during migration. The butterfly we found was tagged by someone working with a group called Monarch Watch, a conservation education and research organization.

Each ultra-light weight polypropylene wing tag has an identification number and an email address printed on it to report your find.

I’m hoping that we found “our” butterfly after it flew and long and arduous journey from somewhere far away. But it could just as well have been tagged and released that day by someone nearby.

Tags are placed in a specific spot on the butterfly wing to minimize flight interference.

All tagging information is placed in a data base. Monarch Watch contacts both the tagger and the person finding the butterfly with the location of where it was tagged and found and, how far it traveled.

Most of the tagged butterflies in the United States and Canada are found dead. Ours however looked to be a strong flyer.

Reporting tagged butterflies helps researchers learn how Monarchs move across north america to their wintering places in Mexico.

Bob

I’ve seen noticeably fewer insects in my garden this year. It’s probably due to the relatively cool temperatures we’ve been having this summer, especially at night.

While looking at my apple trees this week I noticed some funny little insects flitting around the leaves and fruit — they were apple maggot flies. It is the larval stage of this fly that causes brown streaks inside infested apples.

Apple maggot flies have a distinct pattern on their wings. You may not recognize it as a fly at first glance.

Normally, the early varieties are the ones that really get hammered by apple maggots. However this year, my early apples were free of those pests. My guess is that the flies took a little longer than usual to develop and were not around around in sufficient numbers to cause any noticeable damage.

Now that I’ve picked all of my very early summer apples, the maggots have moved over to the other later varieties that have apples still developing. The adult flies are looking for apples on which to lay eggs. The eggs will hatch into those pesky maggots that ruin so many apples.

The storm front moved through yesterday and the rain has ended. That gave me a chance to spray my trees this morning to knock back those apple maggot flies. I like to spray early in the morning when the air is calm and spray material is not being blown back in my face by wind.

There are other ways of controlling apple maggot flies that take more time such as trapping adult flies, or wrapping each individual apple to protect it from egg laying flies.

I suggest you spend some quiet time with your trees soon and look for apple maggot flies. If you find them, use your control method of choice. Your trees will reward you with pest free apples.

Bob

We all know the story about the goose that laid golden eggs. Last week in my garden I found golden eggs that were definitely not laid by a goose.

It happened while I was hand weeding. I came across  a blade of grass with tiny, metallic-gold eggs all in a row. They are quite striking when you first see them. The eggs really do look like they’re made of gold but of course they are not. It’s just the way the light reflects off of them that gives the gold appearance.

Even though the eggs are small, their golden color makes them easy to spot.

I kept the leaf in a jar and watched the eggs. What hatched were evil-looking spiny, red-colored nymphs — probably one of the Euthochtha species of stink bugs. Most likely one of the plant eaters.

This is the nymph stage in the lifecycle of a stick bug.

It’s not uncommon to find these eggs but it does provide a bit of a diversion from the otherwise tedious job of weeding by hand.

Bob