Back in October, I kept hold of a good few tenanted mines to try and rear. Rearing anything overwinter is tricky, and although I have successfully reared quite a few leaf miners these have all been early broods or species that overwinter as adults. Keeping mines over winter needs them to be in pretty natural conditions outdoors. I picked up a tip from Bluesky about using fine mesh net bags, the sort of thing that may be used for fruit/veg. A quick look on Amazon and I found some suitable bags - albeit in a fluorescent green ....
I transferred all of the mined leaves from the tubs I usually keep them in to the bags, labelled up and promptly hung them low underneath a big trug at the bag of the garden. Here they were maybe 8" off of the ground, protected from rain and snow but in now way protected from cold and wind. Fingers crossed, and there they stayed until last weekend. There was no sign of life in any of them at that point - aside from one or two barkflies that must have been on the leaves in the first place. I brought them indoors on Sunday and they've been in the office away from the radiator though obviously warming up more than they would in the garden.
Today I've had the first successes. x3 Phyllonorycter sp. have emerged from a bag that I'd labelled as Malus? from Fosse Meadows on 23/10/2024. This is because those leaves were collected from the ground next to a naked twiggy small tree that I had no clue what it was, but the leaves looked about right for apple despite being yellowy/brown. These all had 'green island' early Phyllonorycter mines. The emerged moths are all pretty much the same and look right for Phyllonorycter blancardella - TBC via gen det as P. hostis cannot be reliably separated by the mine or adult.
