Terry Blumenthal, age 8, of Los Angeles, California for his question:

How does the moth get out of a jumping bean ?

By fall, our supply of merry little jumping beans seem to calm down, We’ve asked enough questions to learn what makes them jump. We know that a little caterpillar lives inside, using the bean for a house and a pantry. From time to time he makes the bean jump as he does his setting up exercises. His mother, a moth put him into a flower as an egg, the flower faded, the egg hatched and the caterpillar grew inside the growing bean.

Naturally, we now begin to wonder how the little fellow will get out of his beany residence and become a moth like his mother. Andy says it is a good idea to keep those tired beans long enough to find out,

The growing caterpillar eats his way close to one end of the bean, Only a thin doorway separates him from the outside world. Then he relaxes and goes into his chrysalis stage, If you keep them, your supply of beans will only give slight twitches during this stage.

Keep them in a box, not near a radiator,. Douse them with a little water from time to time. And you may have to wait all winter to see any change. But, come spring, the sleeping chrysalis will begin to wake up.

Try to be on hand to see the new moths emerge from their coats inside the beans. With a shoves the thin doorway to the world is burst open, The end of the chrysalis appears and soon cracks open, the little fellow is seeing the world for the very first time.

He will take his time,, working and resting in spells to break free of his safe little house. Don't try to hurry him. The moth which finally emerges may disappoint you. It may even startle your mother, For he looks for all the world like a clothes moth

In fact he is related to the wool eating clothes moth, But you can assure the family that he will eat no clothes. Chances are he will eat nothing at all  he did all his eating inside the bean as a caterpillar. You may keep your brood of moths in a screened box. They may flutter for you for from two to three weeks  which is about as long as they live.