Hawkins cautioned against using strategies like spraying cooking oil on your feeder to keep bees away. “They really divide it up,” Hawkins said. If the hummingbirds had their druthers, he explained, they would likely go for the sweeter water, but they are happy to congregate around the less sweet option to avoid bees. “Bees love the three to one and will go there, and the hummingbirds will go to five to one,” Hawkins said. If bee problems persist, Hawkins suggested filling one feeder with a five to one ratio of water to sugar and the other with a higher concentration of three to one.
“It isn’t always obvious when you buy a feeder which one has liquid below the port and one doesn’t,” he admitted. Hawkins said to look for a “basin-type feeder,” which has a bowl that holds the sugar water below the port where hummingbirds drink. “Bees are only coming to a feeder because they can access the sugar water because the feeding port is right up against the liquid,” Hawkins said. Bees and ants enjoy sugar water about as much as birds and may start to overrun your feeder if you do not manage it well. There is another concern when it comes to feeding hummingbirds: bugs. “I’ve seen some beautiful feeders that I would never buy because it would be impossible to clean them,” Hawkins said. The most important consideration when you are purchasing a feeder is whether it is easy to clean. Photo by Gabor Degre Choosing and placing your hummingbird feeder “They could care less what the color is.” “I’ve had clear ones that they come to,” Hawkins added. “I’ve seen ones that i had no idea were hummingbird feeders.” Bassett recalled a hummingbird feeder he once saw that resembled a lighthouse. “If it’s a hummingbird feeder a hummingbird will figure it out,” Bassett said. Though red feeders are popular because of this common misconception, Basset and Hawkins agreed that generally color does not matter because hummingbirds are quick to learn where the good sources of nectar are located. “That’s what gives rise to the concept that hummingbirds are drawn to red.”
“The hummingbirds learn from experience that the red flowers are more likely to be productive,” Hawkins said. According to Hawkins, red flowers are more likely to be replete with nectar, in part because insects are blind to the red part of the color spectrum and will skip them. The red dye gets people to buy that mixture for five times what you can get sugar for in the store.”ĭue to the dense concentration of cones in their retinas, hummingbirds’ eyes are more sensitive to colors in the red and yellow parts of the color spectrum, but their affinity for red is learned and somewhat coincidental. “It does nothing whatsoever to attract hummingbirds. “I hear red food color will kill hummingbirds, but no study has ever been done on that,” Basset said. In reality, experts say has no impact on how often the birds will frequent your feeder. Many store bought hummingbird food is tinged with red food coloring under the auspice of attracting birds. “It turns into a brown syrupy gunk in your feeder that is so viscous they can’t drink it, and it is hard to clean,” Bassett added.Īlso avoid the temptation to brightly color your homemade nectar with food coloring.
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