How to Get a Butterfly to Drink Sugar Water

Teachers and parents can teach children about metamorphosis by helping them raise caterpillars. Larvae are readily available in rural areas or through garden supply catalogs and insect stores. Children enjoy watching butterfly larvae eat leaves, spin cocoons and eventually transform into beautiful butterflies. Butterflies live only a few weeks or less and feed on nectar from flowers. In the absence of nectar-producing blossoms, you can feed the insects with a sugar water solution.

Things You'll Need

  • Eyedropper
  • Fresh flowers
  • Cotton balls
  • Paper plates
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Instructions

    • 1

      Dissolve 3 tsp. sugar in 1 cup of hot water and wait for it to cool.

    • 2

      Place a few drops of sugar water in the center of each fresh flower in a bouquet. If fresh flowers aren't available, soak cotton balls in the sugar water.

    • 3

      Place the flowers or cotton balls on the floor of the butterfly habitat. If using cotton balls, place them on paper plates before setting them on the floor.

    • 4

      Watch the butterflies drink the sugar water when they get hungry: when butterflies feed, they straighten out a coiled tongue, called a proboscis, and use it as a straw to suck up the liquid. When they're done feeding, the butterflies curl up their tongues again.