Monarch butterflies are quickly disappearing from the U. S. It’s believed the problem is industrialized farming's use of Monsanto’s Round-Up and other herbicides. Round-Up has killed most of the milkweed that monarch butterfly larvae need to eat for growth before they spin cocoons and become adult butterflies. Monarchwatch.org (call 1-800-780-9986) sells rearing kits in the spring; and I obtained their hatched monarch eggs. You need a couple of milkweed leaves each day for each larva. One dozen larva need 2 dozen milkweed leaves every day for 2 weeks or more. I fed the larvae milkweed for about 2 weeks in which the

larvae became caterpillars (2 in. long). Then I released the large caterpillars on to outside milkweed where I hoped they would build cocoons and transform into beautiful monarch butterflies. If you can afford lots of milkweed plants, it’s better to let them build their cocoons indoors cause ants are faster than caterpillars; and the ants find most of the caterpillars and eat them. The time from eggs to butterflies is about 5 - 6 weeks or 1 1/2 months. In the summer, I hoped many butterflies journeyed north, but I also saw so many monarch butterflies and other butterflies especially on the zinnias. Years ago, I was given some zinnia flowers that 

had finished blooming; I kept the flower heads in a dry environment and planted the seeds by ruffling the flower heads between my hands on to some bare soil in early spring. I continue to save the zinnia flower heads after they have bloomed and the seeds have had some time to ripen -- and now collect 8 full sacks each year and give some sacks away. You can also lobby states and the Federal Highway Administration to plant roadside land with milkweeds and other flowering plants instead of grass. Massive numbers of honeybee colonies are also collapsing. We need the honeybees to help pollinate our crops.