Butterfly Farming and Gardening Education

An intern may work from one day to one week at the butterfly farm. (Scroll to the bottom for seminar/intern fees.)

Please contact us if you are interested in either program, butterfly farming/breeding internship or butterfly breeding seminar. edith@buyabutterfly.com

Topics and activities covered in both the internship and seminar programs:
butterfly care, egg production, larvae production, pupae pinning, eclosing methods, lepidoptera disease identification and prevention,
packing and shipping, artificial diet, hand-pairing, plant propagation and production, butterfly farm layout,
permit application, marketing, farmer networking, sources for supplies, and more.

With a seminar, you wash eggs once, pin a few pupae, and a few other steps of farming if time allows, including check adults for OE and look at slides with a lot or OE and a tiny bit of OE. No matter which one you take, we are determined that you’ll go home knowing that you can spot OE without problem (if you’ve not already figured it out!). We cover everything that we do in the internship week but in less depth, due to the fact that there is less time.

With a week's internship, you do a part of everything.
Day one; (hands-on) hand pairing, forced egg production, (hands-on) washing eggs, (hands-on) tend to hatchling larvae, locating breeding stock in the wild, farm supply sources, and (hands-on) packing pupae for shipping.
Day two; diseases (signs/symptoms, prevention, identification, control, elimination), (hands-on) tending older larvae and (hands-on) pulling pupae.
Day three; farm layouts, farmer networking, (hands-on) pack larvae for shipping, (hands-on) pupae disinfection, pupae cooling, (hands-on) pupae pinning, adult emerging, adult care, and adult holding until shipment for release.
Day four; drop-shipping, (hands-on) packing/shipping adults, (hands-on) Painted Ladies and AD, and visit the Butterfly Rainforest at the McGuire Center UF (if a spouse attends, we don’t cover the second entry fee).
Day five; (hands-on) checking adults for disease, permits, release opposition, and recap anything and redo anything you have questions about from the week. There’s so much that goes into the internship. Included in the program are tips that we learned the hard way; what we wish we had known or learned the hard way.

Internship; we can pick you up at the Jacksonville airport if you fly into Florida.

Most of the time a spare room is available in our house and we would be glad to have you stay as our guest. We only ask that you respect our conservative Christian values at our home and our farm.

We will be glad to offer suggestions for a hotel or bed and breakfast nearby.

Seminar size may range from a one-person seminar to groups of forty seminar attendees.

You are welcome to bring your camera to take photos as you visit and/or work at the butterfly farm.