Subject: Re: attract bflies to a wooden house

From: Adele Hensley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 00:52:46 -0400

I haven't ever tried to attract Butterflies to a wooden house but I have 
heard that these wooden Bat houses aren't very successful either.  When I was
a student at the University of Florida, UF had a big colony of bats 
living in the track stadium.  They wanted to get rid of them but not to 
destroy them.  So,  Bat Conservation International and UF and several 
really good biologists worked on building a large version of the bat 
houses you can buy from Natl Geographic.  They finished the bat house, 
they moved all the bats and sealed them inside for a day or two, so the 
house would smell right, they sealed all the holes in the stadium, and 
THE BATS NEVER REALLY USED the BAT HOUSE.  We were all so disappointed.  
I haven't been back for a couple of years, I don't know if things have 
changed.

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From: [email-masked] (Riley Foster)
Date: 13 Apr 1995 19:31:45 GMT

There certainly is a lot of misinformation about butterfly hibernation
boxes among the public. I have 3 homemade boxes & have put them out 
faithfully for 4 winters. I don't think any butterflies have ever used 
them. Many people think hibernation boxes are like bird or bat houses,
that butterflies will use them in the summer. Lepidopterists know better.
I take my boxes down in the spring & replace them in the fall. The main
source for setting out hibernation boxes seems to be L. Hugh Newman. In
one of his late 50's or early 1960's books makes (rather) extravagant 
claims about attracting butterflies by providing hibernation sites. In
my opinion, a woodpile set up to overwinter the few species that survive
as adults would be better than a box. One lady at my butterfly gardening
lectures got mad at me when I told her that the cute little "butterfly
house" her husband had made would make a great home for spiders & wasps
but would probably never house a butterfly. 
-- 

          "The more necessary anything appears to my mind, the more
           certain it is that I only assert a limitation."