Florida Butterfly Ranch a Winged Victory

Zane Greathouse operates his farm on dainty wings and a lot of prayer.

He raises butterflies--45 varieties of them.

On the site of the family’s 150-year-old pecan farm, Greathouse carefully breeds butterflies for weddings, funerals, exhibits and zoos.

Inside a screened enclosure, black-and-white zebra longwings, Florida’s state butterfly, flutter around a passion vine, laying yellow eggs smaller than a pinprick.

“If we make butterflies happy, they lay eggs for us,” Greathouse said.

In seven to 10 days, those tiny eggs will hatch as caterpillars, which become eating machines until they go into the pupa stage and eventually become graceful winged insects.

“It’s kind of like raising children. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail,” said Teresa Rischer, production manager at the Greathouse Butterfly Farm.

To keep his butterflies happy and producing, Greathouse has six greenhouses with nothing but plants.

“It’s all about the plants,” said Greathouse, a former science teacher who runs the farm just east of Gainesville with his brother, Dan, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, and other family members.

Butterflies Replace Rice at Weddings

Greathouse learned early that the caterpillars and butterflies are picky eaters. Many species will eat only one kind of plant. Monarchs, for instance, will only munch on milkweed.

In separate enclosures, Greathouse raises zebra longwings, red admirals, queens, swallowtails and 41 other varieties--all of them native to Florida.

Each day, hundreds of butterflies and pupae are shipped out by overnight mail. Individual butterflies--about $5 each--are packed into glassine envelopes with an ice pack to slow down their metabolism. Pupae are shipped in boxes cushioned in toilet paper.

Regular customers include the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Cleveland Zoo and the Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg.

A popular use of the butterflies is having guests release them outside a church after a wedding, replacing the rice-throw or release of doves, which some churches have banned because with the birds come their droppings.

Some families also order butterflies for release at a cemetery during funerals.

“Funerals are the hectic thing. With a wedding you have about six months’ notice,” Greathouse said.

Among Biggest Jobs: Fighting Off Predators

On occasion the Greathouses wrangle butterflies for movies and television commercials, although it can be a daunting task to get the butterflies to perform on cue.

Some of the Greathouse butterflies have appeared on the big screen in the movies “Beloved” and “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and in Glamour magazine fashion shoots.

Greathouse got the idea to go into the business while raising the insects for his fifth-grade science classes in Gainesville. He and brother Dan captured their original breeding stock right on the farm.

Over the years, the operation has expanded into what Greathouse claims is the largest butterfly farm in Florida. It is open 12 months a year, seven days a week, and offers tours to student and adult groups.

One of the biggest jobs, Greathouse said, is fighting off the wasps, stink bugs, spiders, lizards and mice that want to make a lunch of the butterflies.

“It’s been fun,” Greathouse said. “But I can’t get any sympathy when I tell folks I had a rough day at the butterfly farm.”