Busy, busy butterflies!

This year has been a booming year for the monarchs in my yard.  I've been releasing them by the dozens.  Here's a pic of one of the day's hatching:

I've added a couple more milkweed beds and the monarchs have been laying eggs like crazy.  This little white dot is a monarch egg.

I've tried taking the leaves with eggs and putting them in my habitat but they don't seem to hatch once the leaf is taken off the plant.  So I go out and look for the just hatched caterpillars and put them in the habitat. These are ones I found just this morning:

If I don't get to them early enough the wasps destroy them.  This is a caterpillar that was attacked by a wasp.

There are other bugs that love the milkweed too.  Aphids are a real problem as the sugar ants actually deposit them on the plant, care for them, and eat the sugary residue from the aphids.  Aphids are also called 'ant cows' and you can see why.  These ants are 'milking' the aphids they deposited onto the milkweed.

But along with the aphids are other predators of the aphids to even things out.  I leave the aphids on the plants because it brings ladybugs to my flower beds.  If there's enough food for them and the aphids are plentiful, they will lay eggs on the plants and the ladybugs and their larvae will eat them all up.  They are my organic pesticide! This shows a ladybug under the leaf and the larvae on top of the leaf eating the aphids.  The orange and black larvae look like bad guys but they have ferocious appetites and are always welcome in my garden!