www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I was searching for Anthocharis eggs today when I noticed a lot of Cardamine flower heads at this site had more than one egg: One had two eggs which looked like they were laid at the same time: I wonder does this vary between sites? I have found "doubled up" eggs before but never in this abundance and one flower head I found even had five eggs close together.

It's not unusual to find multiple eggs, particularly where flower heads are scarce which I suspect may happen this year on some sites with the lack of rain we've had. Here's a few pics I took a few years ago at a good site for orange-tips when the Garlic Mustard pretty much failed to appear, just a few stunted flower spikes.

I've seen four or five ova on a head. the newley hatched larvae will disable the other ova if they can. They don't 'eat' them as such, but do enough damage to stop development.

June 6th 2021, Lincolnshire
Hello, I have another question about Orange-tip eggs and first instar vulnerability as prey for other insects.
By June 6th this year, I had counted 4 Orange-tip eggs in a garden. One was lost with no sign of instar. The other three are still eggs.
I am going to use this picture from May 28th 2021 to show a comparison of size between Orange-tip egg and black ant: My assumption was, as Spring progressed to Summer and Orange-tip butterflies might have been late brooding due to seasonal temperatures, there might have been more Summer Insects that preyed upon very early stages, than Spring ones.
So what were the Summer Insects that preyed upon Orange-tip very early stages?

I'm rearing a few larvae from stems with multiple eggs laid on them, supplying them with extra stems, and they've quite happily separated out and are feeding up well.