Specs

Quantity

• While egg cases may contain up to 400 eggs, only about 1/2 will hatch. You will usually get around 200 praying mantises!

Instructions

Dormancy

• Praying mantises need to be refrigerated to stay dormant!

Hatching

• Egg cases will take a few weeks to hatch once they are taken out of the cold, depending on temperature and light (between 2 and 8 weeks). Warm temperatures and bright light will help them hatch!
• Indoors
  • To witness an egg case hatching, keep it indoors inside a hatching chamber (5 cm above the chamber floor).
  • Mist gently as needed! You do not want your egg case to dry out.
  • Place container in a warm spot, not directly in the sun.
• Outdoors
  • In mid-June, when the weather is hot enough (consistently above 15 °C) and the daylight hours are longer, you can place them outside, in a tree 1-3 feet above the ground to protect the insects.
  • If the egg case is not placed outside or the mantises are not released once they've hatched, the females will eat the males!
• When an egg case starts hatching, it takes only 1 or 2 hours! The mantises will quickly disperse as they are very cannibalistic and the egg case will appear unchanged after hatching.

Release

• Once hatched, if not already done, let the mantises go in you garden!
  • Each mantis will set up its own territory where it will live for the summer.
  • They are quite difficult to find in the garden because they are well camouflaged! Later in the summer they will fly to find a mate — this is often when they are seen. As the weather cools, they will also sit out in the sun to warm themselves.

Info

How do praying mantises help your garden?

• Praying mantises will eat all kinds of pesky insects, including mosquitoes, flies, aphids, beetles, caterpillars, and more!