Monarch butterflies mainly eat nectar from flowers, and they need to eat several times a day to keep their energy up. They can also eat other foods when desperate, such as stale fruit, sliced decaying oranges, grapefruits, strawberries, peaches, nectarines, apples, and bananas. If you want to feed a just-hatched monarch butterfly, you can make nectar by mixing one part sugar to four parts warm water and allowing the sugar to fully dissolve. You can also use canned fruit nectar in place of sugar water and either place it in a plastic bottle cap or saturate a tissue with it. Additionally, you can provide nectar-bearing flowers, especially milkweed, which is the monarchs food of choice. Its important to note that you should seldom feed the day of emergence.