# Tachinid fly control?



## novicejr (Jul 29, 2013)

I don't know how many of you have heard of the Tachinid fly. Wikipedia describes it here. It's a parasite fly, and lays its eggs in other insects. The eggs then feed off the host insect and eventually kill it, and then the larva emerge and turn into flies, and repeat the cycle. Anyway, the problem I have is that I am trying to raise monarch caterpillars, and they keep getting killed by tachinid flies. I know it's "nature", but my kids (and I) have been growing milkweed for over a year, and initially enjoyed the wonder and awe of seeing caterpillars turn into chrysalises and then butterflies, but now almost all the time we see the young caterpillars but then later find them dead because they've been killed by tachinid flies. You can read more of our trials and tribulations here, but the short of it is that we're getting really discouraged.
Anyway, I googled "tachinid fly control" to see how to control the tachinid, and all I found was how the tachinid fly controls [kills] other insects (bad pests, ie bad caterpillars that eat garden vegetables, etc). I couldn't find anything on how to control (and hopefully eradicate) the tachinid fly itself!
I suppose I could sit by my milkweed with chopsticks and practice my version of the Karate Kid (does anyone get this reference?), but does anyone have any more reasonable ideas on how to get rid of the tachinid fly? Does anyone else here grow milkweed for monarch caterpillars?


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