Our first pick-up date is now sold out. See our second option, here.

Raising the praying mantis is super fun and full of opportunities to observe a rather interesting beneficial insect in your home and garden.

Please note that we are not able to ship any of our beneficial insects.

Pre-order items such as beneficial insects do qualify for 10% Member's Discount but not Member's Day Double Discounts. 

We love our praying mantis. At Sage Garden, we release eggs each May, and by mid-summer, we are delighted with the mature praying mantis that call our space home. This fierce-looking, but rather tame, beneficial insects eat a wide variety of general pests. They start out munching on smaller flies, then work their way up to whiteflies, potato beetles, cinch bugs, smaller caterpillars and many other pests. Praying mantis are opportunistic feeders and thrive where there are lots of things to catch. 

Our hatched mantis live primarily in the greenhouse (although they do make their way outdoors on occasion), but home gardeners can hatch the eggs in a sheltered location in the backyard. The ideal time to release outdoors in southern Manitoba is mid-June through early July.  Praying Mantis do not survive winter outdoors in Manitoba, and therefore will not displace local species. 

Each egg case contains between 40 and 200 eggs and hatches within 4 weeks under early summer conditions (our experience is they hatch within 1 week when temperatures are nice and warm). The young mantis are cannibals, so they tend to disperse quickly to establish their own territory. They are well camouflaged as they develop, so they seem to disappear for 4 - 6 weeks, then emerge as they mature and seek out mates. By summer's end, they are up to 12 cm (5") long and are either green or papery brown. By fall they frequently fly about... we often mistake them for hummingbirds at first glance!

If using the mantis hatching enclosure be sure to mist the egg case every day, to ensure it stays hydrated. Once the mantis hatch, they need to quickly be allowed to disperse, The hatching enclosure provides a safe place for the mantis egg case and an easy way for you to observe.