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Hi All,
Happy Father's Day, June 19, to all fathers. My father, Don Oehlke, will be 91 in December. I very thankful for all that he taught me and did for me over the years.
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Not everything goes right.
Many years ago I received an email from an ailing WLSS member. I think he was going through an especially bad time. He was disturbed that everything seemed to be going so well for me as per the many newsletters that I had posted over the years. Well, not everything always goes so well here.
We have been having an extremely cold, wet spring. Although I have managed a columbia pairing, a cecropia pairing, two luna pairings and two polyphemus pairings, there have been some difficulties and losses:
The first of my breeding stock to emerge, a nice female luna, failed to attract a mate on a very cold first night. She started dumping eggs the second night and did not call again.
Two female polyphemus emerged and one paired with a male I took at a light in another area, and brought home. The second female poly was placed in a cage in the wood shed with door left wide open to allow access and to protect her and any potential suitors from rain. When I checked her at dawn the next morning her cage had been tipped over and she was gone, apparently the work of a cat or raccoon. No more cages in the wood shed.
I only saved three columbia cocoons for breeding purposes. Two have hatched and one turned out to be a male. Fortunately I did get a pairing and am hopeful the next columbia to emerge will be a female and I will get a second pairing. Usually I can take a female or two at lights, but the extremely cold temperatures thus far have put a damper on that. Will have to save more columbia cocoons in the future.
I was able to get a cecropia pairing from a coupling of a reared male and a reared female from different "bloodlines". Two nice female cecropia emerged yesterday but neither called in mate last night, and it is supposed to be even colder tonight before it warms to seasonal temperatures for the weekend. Hopefully, if they do not pair this evening before it gets too cold, they will still be calling the following evenings when there should be many more males on the wing due to much warmer, forecasted temperatures.
I was able to get two luna pairings, indoors from reared stock. The following night I had three nice females in an indoor cage with two males. It was too cold to leave them outside. I set the cage on a chair in the kitchen and covered the cage with a remay sleeve. When I woke up and checked the cage, there were five sets of wings scattered along the bottom of the cage. Apparently a mouse, aroused by the fluttering, explored and found a ready meal. No more cages in the kitchen. Mouse traps will be set this evening.
On a much brighter side, the weather is supposed to warm considerably for the weekend, and the long range forecast calls for more typical summer weather for the next two weeks. I still have cocoons to eclose and there will be a much greater chance for taking females at lights here on the Island and in Nova Scotia when Derek Bridgehouse and I make our annual tril to Malay Falls for some night time collecting later in June.
I want to make sure I have enough eggs for my own rearing before I start shipping eggs to my Canadian customers. Unfortunately there is a good chance that mail delivery in Canada will come to a halt July 2 as there is a looming threat of a strike of some of the unions. July 1 is a holiday in Canada and postal counter service is not available on weekends in Canada, so I do not have much time left to get pairings for myself and still have enough time to get eggs out to customers without the deliveries being held up by a postal strike.
Oh, well, whatever happens, happens. I have lots to do to keep me busy.
No pairings on June 17. It got much too cold, dropped quickly to 7C buy 10:30 pm. It is supposed to be a nice warm day today, 18th, and night time temps should allow for male flight. Another female columbia, another female cecropia, two female luna and another female polyphemus and first male S.c. emerged 17-18th. I hope to have multiple pairings tonight (18th) and tomorrow morning (columbia). I caught two mice! All moths survived the night (17th) in cages secured on kitchen table.
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Quite a few people have requested prices on eggs for 2016. Here is what is anticipated to be available.
If you wish to make a request, please help me with my record keeping. I need your complete shipping address in your email to me. I need species and quantities desired. I need to know your payment method in advance, i.e. personal check, cashier's check, paypal. I need to know when you can begin or want to receive eggs.
I ship eggs to Canadian customers in June and sometimes into very early July from PEI. I expect to have Actias luna, Antheraea polyphemus,
Dryocampa rubicunda, Hyalophora cecropia, Hyalophora columbia. I will send out personal email notifications to all Canadian WLSS members in early May.
Luna and polyphemus and rubicunda eggs are $6.00/dozen; cecropia and columbia eggs are $7.00/dozen. Shipping and handling will depend on your destination.
GST or HST will depend upon your destination province. I cannot guarantee that I will be able to ship multiple species in the same packet so there may be
S & H charges for each species, but if I can send two or more species in same packet, I will pass the savings on to you regarding the shipping costs.
Please note there is a shipping and handling fee of $7.00/species in additional to the price for eggs for all shipping within the US.
I have shipping partners within the United States who ship eggs for me to US customers. We expect to have the following species:
Actias luna at $5.00 US/dozen
I do not have a commitment for Arizona species this year so I doubt they will be available through me.
I do not have a commitment yet for 2016, but often in March and again in late summer or early fall I have the following Texas species available:
Eupackardia calleta at $6.00 US/dozen
Shipping charges are more consistent within US so there will be one flat shipping rate of $7.00/species no matter how many dozen eggs you request of that species.
I do not charge any taxes on US orders. There would be a paypal charge of 4% if you wish to pay by paypal.
If you are interested in any US species not on the list, let me know and I will see if I can make any arrangements. If you wish to become an egg shipper for me,
please send me an email, and I will reply with details of the working arrangement.
Antheraea polyphemus at $5.00 US/dozen
Automeris io at $6.00 US/dozen
Callosamia promethea at $5.00 US/dozen
Citheronia regalis at $7.00 US/dozen
Eacles imperialis at $7.00 US/dozen
Hyalophora cecropia at $6.00 US/dozen
Hyalophora columbia at $6.00 US/dozen
Samia cynthia at $6.00 US/dozen
Rothschildia lebeua forbesiat $6.00 US/dozen
It appears that neither will be available this year.
Luna eggs are being shipped from Alabama, March 21, 2016. Polyphemus eggs are also available as of March 21.
I will keep track of egg availablity on this page for late March to mid May.
We have also shipped regalis eggs, May 9-10, and imperialis eggs were shipped in early May from Alabama. Cecropia eggs have also been shipped this spring. Later batches of all species are anticipated. Some cecropia are being shipped from North Carolina, May 12. Luna being shipped from Connecticut, May 16.
Luna, polyphemus, cecropia, promethea, regalis have been shipped in late May.
Polyphemus and cecropia are being shipped from Wisconsin May 30-June 2.
Polyphemus are being shipped from New York early to mid June, probably into late June.
Luna eggs are available from New Hampshire and Alabama mid June.
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I have not seen any cabbage whites yet as of May 16, but I did take one cecropia and one polyphemus cocoon out of cold storage, May 11. I will continue to take cocoons out of cold storage every other day to try to distribute the rearing work over the summer months.
May 11: 1 cecropia; 1 polyphemus
May 13: 2 cecropia; 2 polyphemus; 2 luna
May 15: 2 cecropia; 2 polyphemus; 4 luna; 1 columbia
May 16: 2 cecropia; 3 polyphemus; 3 luna
May 17: I intend to take out 1 cecropia; 2 polyphemus; 3 luna; 1 columbia
May 19: I intend to take out 1 cecropia; 2 polyphemus; 4 luna; 1 columbia; all Cp; all Sc
I will be away from home May 19-24 when I return home on May 24 I intend to take out remaining cecropia (1 or 2), remaining polyphemus (1 or 2) and remaining
luna (3-5)
Some luna taken out as late as May 29
A nice female luna emerged June 10 but did not pair that night; it was perhaps too cold. She started dumping eggs second night out and never paired.
Two female polyphemus and a male luna emerged June 11
Took a male polyphemus and males of modesta, myops, jamaicensis in Elliotvale, June 11. Male was put in cage with female and paired.
Male and female columbia emerged on 12. Very cold night on 12 no show for wild males and weather forecast was for continued cold and rain so I put reared male in with
female and they paired on morning of 13.
As many as nine male and female luna emerged from June 12-15. Two female lunas paired with reared males in cage June 15.
Two female polyphemus eclosed on 14th, too cold to pair with wild males. Hopefully they will still be caling on 16th. Too cold on 14-15 and maybe even too cold on
16th.
Reared male and female cecropia emerged on 15th and paired.
Two female cecropia emerged morning of 16th. Did not pair 16-17 as t was too cold at night.
We are having a prolonged strreak of cold, rainy weather on PEI. Temperatures at night, even with a cloud cover and rain, have been getting as low as 7-8C which
usually stifles male flight. Hope we get a break soon. It is supposed to warm considerably starting on Friday, 17th, but night time temps, without cloud cover
are supposed to dip to 7C, too cold for Saturniidae flight.
Many thanks to Franceirlem Oliveira from Rio Grande do Norte who continues to send me images of live Saturniidae and their larvae: Automeris bilinea male and larva; Dirphia moderata female and eggs.
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I recently posted an image of what I am pretty sure is Hylesia oratex to the oratex file. It is the first time a live specimen of this species is depicted on WLSS.
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I am currently working on updates to Cricula and Nudaurelia genera.
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I continue to update Brazilian states with Sphingidae images.
Francierlem Oliveira has been especially helpful with submissions from Extremoz, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, and I have been documenting those sightings on the WLSS Rio Grande do Norte file.
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Catocala Capers
Catocala are now flying in US, but I do not expect anything here until July.
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Please note: I reside in Canada at the following address and payment for Saturniidae livestock (eggs, cocoons, pupae) and/or sleeves must be sent to me only at this address:
Bill Oehlke
Box 476
155 Peardon Road
Montague, Prince Edward Island, C0A 1R0
Canada
Postage from USA to Canada is $1.25 (2015 rate) so please use that amount on your envelope with your payment.
If you are in US and order cocoons or pupae from me this fall or winter, you will probably see a New Jersey return address on the shipping box. Do not send payment to the New Jersey address; send it to name and address above please.
This website has been created and is maintained by Bill Oehlke without government or institutional financial assistance. All expenses, ie., text reference support material, webspace rental from Bizland and 1&1, computer repairs/replacements, backups systems, software for image adjustments (Adobe Photoshop; L-View), ftp software, anti-virus protection, scanner, etc. are my own. The one-time-life-time membership fee that is charged at the time of the registration covers most of those expenses.
I very much appreciate all the many images that have been sent to me, or of which I have been granted permission to copy and post from other websites. All images on this site remain the property of respective photographers.
If you would like to contribute to the maintenace of this website by sending a contribution to
Bill Oehlke
Box 476
155 Peardon Road
Montague, Prince Edward Island, C0A1R0
Canada
your donation would be much appreciated and would be used for
1) paying for webspace rental;
2) paying for computer maintenance and software upgrades;
3) purchases of additional text reference material (journals and books) in an effort to stay current with new species;
I also hope to expand the North American Catocala site as well as the Sphingidae of the Americas site, to worldwide sites, and that will require additional funds for reference materials, etc. Both of those site are linked from your WLSS homepage.
If you are mailing a check from USA, please use $1.25 postage (2015 rate). Donations can also be made through Paypal via the button below.
Donations are not required to maintain your standing as a WLSS member, nor do they gain you any preferencial treatment with regard to livestock and/or supplies (sleeves), compared to other WLSS members. All WLSS members get first crack at my annual offerings and get an approximate discount of 10% as compared to non-members.
I do usually ask donors if they have any special requests for information on WLSS, and I try to accomodate when appropriate or within my ability to do so.