My wife is starting to feed the hummingbirds with some store bought mixture. Is it just sugar?

What do you feed the birds?

Sugar water

Doesn't matter what you feed them, you'll never get enough meat off them to make it worth time.

Sugar water. 4:1 water to sugar ratio.

and don't use any dyes.

boil one part water to dissolve the sugar, then combine to other 3 parts.

I shake defuq out of it, I don’t boil it

Cold water, sugar, shake it like a Boss

Refill executed in 90 seconds



The babies are hungry

Yep, sugar water !

4:1 water to sugar ratio and DON'T add any dye. It's bad for them. We currently have 2 feeders hanging in the back yard and get as many as 7-8 hummingbirds at a time. They're fun to watch.

I keep reading/hearing that the dye is bad for the little birds, BUT can you even buy the stuff in a store that doesn't have dye in it? If not, why would the companies that make the stuff want to do harm to the birds? Why are they still adding dye if it's been proven that it harms them?

I don't add any dye, because it's simply not necessary.

There are a couple store bought mixes that are clear but most have the dye. I have used this before and they seemed to like it and were around all summer with no apparent ill effects. Just as easy to do the sugar water.

https://www.amazon.com/Kaytee-Hummi...91195466&sr=8-3&tag=hydusmmsn-20

I gotta 'fess up, I just use the Perky Pet red stuff. The sodium benzoate makes it last longer.

Finally put one up 2 days ago...............have yet to see a hummer!

We feed them all summer. It's important to remove the feeders at migration time, or they tend to stick around too far into cold weather to survive the trip south. Clear feeding solutions are available, and if you use the feeders with the red "flowers" at the feeding points it attracts them just as effectively as the big red globe of liquid does. Watching several hummers dogfighting over one specific feeding point while ignoring several others is amusing- - - - -they put on a show that would put the Red Baron to shame!

We use a big iron "Shepherd's crook" hanger to put the feeders where they're easily visible from windows, and wrap a strip of flypaper around the upright to keep ants from climbing the pole and contaminating the feeding liquid.
Jerry

Good post, but this part just ain't so. Waterfowl migrate or not dependent upon food supply, but being so much larger they can lay on enough fat for a 500 mile hop to the south as needed, But if hummingbirds waited until food was in short supply before migrating they would never be able to survive the trip.

In most birds the time, distance and direction of migration is genetic, not related to food supply. Because its genetic there's always inherent variation. A few inherit wrong directions; too early, too late, too far, not far enough, wrong direction. Once in a great while one of these oddballs lucks out and discovers a new place that species can survive and passes on its own migration path to its offspring.

It is probable that most late or non-migratory hummingbirds are gonna die anyhow. They need more than just sugar to survive and when cold weather kills off the tiny insects they ordinarily feed on they linger for awhile then die, usually December-January up north.

What the guys and especially what Birdie said. Avoid that store-bought stuff - you don't really know what's in it.

And do NOT take your feeders down to "force them to migrate" because they desperately need to fatten up for that arduous trip, and taking down your feeders may in fact condemn them to starvation. You are making them leave on an "empty tank" when they need all the fuel they can get.

Leftover Nutrisweet?

Do they need the little yellow fake flowers to find the food or can they smell it?

Would they go for a bowl of sugar water?

They sell dye so old cataract fuggs and see the level of product in their feeders.

These birds know what feeders look like. Lol

Before I hung this feeder, they were showing up investigating some globe shaped wind chimes and hippie prism bullchit my wife has hanging on our deck.

Thought what the hell, put a feeder up...see what this bullshît is all about

this

simple....have some mixed for a fresh batch today

Not many hummers yet showing up

the kool hummers are 'hummingbird moths'

They show up around dusk and hit the flowers

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/hummingbird_moth.shtml

The hummers are chasing off my carpenter bees. Earning their keep.

They'll be along before long.

whats the secret to keeping all the sumbitchin red ants away ?

and change the sugar water frequently to keep it fresh.


i like the idea of fly tape on the post to keep the ants off.

Be patient, You have to earn the hummer.

I wonder how many I have hittin it. They can empty my feeder in 2 days.

Let's see if a bright orange plastic lid will work...

Time to get our feeders up, at the new place.

They are in the hanging basket flowers already !

They're like giant skeeters when they buzz me in the yard. Fairly annoying. But damned pretty when they hold still at the feeder. And fun to watch when they spar.

I've had 'em buzz me on lakes if wearing a red cap, or red shirt !

My Mom uses a "moat" of water at the base of all her many stands. Not sure how to incorporate a moat into a stand, but she has and swears by it. She does not use any tree limbs to hang the feeders as those would be impossible to thwart the ants.

I'm testing some wide packing tape at the base of the 4x4 post

sticky side out....

Thanks! All!!

Flowers designed to be pollinated by hummingbirds are generally red in color, at least in the Eastern US, trumpetvine and crossvine being familiar examples. Southbound ruby- throats depend heavily on jewel weed, which is a red to orange flower.

That being said, when the stuff in my feeder gets fermented, even though it looks good he same to me, hummingbirds will fly to it, hover near it, but not try to feed. I believe they can scent close up with their tongues, like a snake. Ain’t seen that in print tho.

Used to feed them, but now I just let them feed off the flowers we have. Cypress vines, trumpet vines, and some others keep the little beggars fat.

If you want a change of pace, get an oriole feeder. Sugar water, grape jelly, and an orange half. Never attracted an oriole, though they are around, but catbirds and even downy woodpeckers slurp up the jelly and clean the orange right down to the rind. I also toss cherries and blueberries to the catbirds and robins. The catbirds come within a few feet. Right now, every bird in the county is hitting my yellow cherry tree, even red-bellied woodpeckers, and rabbits clean up what gets dropped.

I don't get a whole lot, probably the same families year after year about 8-10 different ones.

We feed them with varying degrees of success. Use an upside down lid filled with water on the hanger for ants, but I like the tape idea.

The ones we have had lately look like a big bumble bee, super tiny. Different species or juveniles? Don't let them get in your garage...those dumb@sses can not find their way out.

The conc of sucrose in the water is hyper osmotic meaning it can kill the bacteria but fungus and mold remains
Adding a small amt of citric acid food grade will keep it acidic enough to stop them


And it smells like lemons

Any hummingbird out of the nest and flying is already about as big as its ever going to be.

If you live in the Mountains out West you may be seeing Calliope hummingbirds, about 25% smaller than a ruby-throat or black-chin.



The Calliope Hummingbird is the smallest North American breeding bird.....

The Calliope Hummingbird survives and breeds successfully in chilling northwestern montane environments, despite having the severe thermal disadvantage of a high ratio of surface exposure to heat-producing tissue mass. Flight speed, endurance on fuel reserves, and brain size (storage capacity) are some of the size-dependent characteristics that can limit migratory travel, so the Calliope Hummingbird is of special interest as the smallest long-distance avian migrant in the world. Seasonal distribution records tell us that some Calliope Hummingbirds must travel more than 5,500 miles annually.

Only place I've seen 'em was in the Sacramento Mountains of SE New Mexico over July 4th, males, already heading back south after breeding up in the Northwest. They really are tiny.

None around here in the lowlands. Still up in the mts where the flowers are blooming.

You should drop buy

Bring some box wine, I promise no pics