How to mix Hummie food
Always use regular cane (table) sugar. Not powdered, and never honey or anything else. Also, you do not need to add red coloring. The birds will find your feeder just fine. So…
For four cups of food (change the numbers if you are mixing more or less than four cups. I usually mix eight.)
One cup of sugar
One cup of boiling water
Put the sugar in a container large enough to hold your final amount of four cups. Pour in one cup of boiling water and stir until the mix is clear with no sugar crystals visible (it won’t take long.) The boiling water sterilizes any nasties in the sugar and helps dissolve it rapidly.
Now add three cups of cold water to make up the full four cups level. Fill your feeders.
If you have syrup left over, store it in a glass or plastic bottle in the fridge. It will keep for two weeks in the fridge – but you’ll probably use it sooner.
When you refill feeders, look very carefully for any sign of black mold – which can be fatal to hummingbirds. Clean thoroughly with a mild bleach solution and a soft brush. Rinse very well before refilling with syrup. If you cannot completely disassemble your feeders to get inside, throw them away and get feeders that allow for complete disassembly and cleaning. I recommend and use feeders by Best-1
https://www.hummingbirdsplus.org/feeders/best-1/ Wasp and bee tip: if you have trouble with wasps on your feeders, put a little bit of Tea Tree Oil on a cotton ball or Q-tip and wipe that around the feeding holes on the feeder. Hummies don’t mind it at all, but wasps and bees can’t stand it. It isn’t toxic, but it drives them away.