Hummingbirds

On the 4th of July, we were at a relatives house on Black River in Georgetown. They had four large feeders on a pole. The pole had 4 bars at the top. I asked if she had seen any hummers this year and she said "Oh yes, alot"! By 5:00 PM, there were 25-30 hummers all over the feeders. We watched them for hours. It was unbelievable to me because I had never seen that many in one place. She makes her own sugar water and does not add the red coloring. Her feeders are the large plastic ones with red bottoms and yellow flowers. No fancy feeders.
Here in Conway,I have seen 3-4 in the last few days. They like the pink honeysuckle, all sage, and Mexican petunias.

This message was edited Jul 7, 2010 10:12 PM

Absolutely, make your own sugar water for the hummers. It's soooooo easy. It's just
1 part sugar ( 1/2 cup for a small batch) (1 cup med batch) (1 1/2 cups large batch)
4 parts water ( 2 cups-small) (4 cups-med) (6 cups-large batch)

Stir well to dissolve sugar. Heat til boiling over med-med/hi heat. My husband likes to crank the heat up to high, but I have to clean the sugar off the stove!! LOL

Let it boil for 1 minute. Turn off. Cool. Refrigerate what isn't used.
We have discovered that the Gatorade bottles (32oz) make good storage for the juice in the fridge. They wash out much better and don't have the smells from other occupants.
Please don't add any color to the juice. You don't need it, and there isn't any benefit to the birds. Might even be harmful. Dyes, although tested for people, are not tested for birds!!

Happy Hummer watching!!

Actually boiling is not necessary and not really a good idea .. it's their little beaks that cause bacteria to get into the solution .. boiling is actually not good because it changes the ratio of sugar to water which should be no more than 4 (water) to 1 (sugar).

When I make mine I get a large saucepan and fill it with 4 cups of water and put it on the stove on high. I then pour 1 cup of sugar and stir til it disappears then immediately take it off the stove .. by then the water is slightly hotter than what comes out of the tap but hot enough to get rid of the chlorine in the water. I let it cool a bit then fill the feeders only 1/3 full and store the rest in the fridge in cleaned 2ltr soda bottles.

I agree that boiling is not necessary - of course, I watch the feeder closely and clean and refresh it every few days, especially in hottest weather (like now). But years ago I read in "Birds and Blooms" magazine that boiling was not required - just careful cleanliness. That would be just one more chore to do, so I am glad to skip it.

I figure that no one boils the nectar in flowers so I just use water hot enough to dissolve the sugar well then cool it. We have about 15 to 20 regulars at our feeders now.

Hmm.
Well, I was told to boil, and I read, (Donald and Lillian Stokes' authored book, "Hummingbird Book, the Complete guide to Attracting, Identifying and Enjoying Hummingbirds"), that it should boil for 1-2 minutes. (page 6)

Of course it really is necessary to clean. Since we change our feeders every day, spoilage isn't an issue.
In past summers, when we had very wet weather, the mold was an issue. Boiling for one minute isn't long, and it seemed to keep longer.

Am I following advice that is out of date?

Mountainbeauty: Who knows? Like so much information today, we get told one thing today authoritatively and another thing tomorrow. We can all agree that cleanliness is the main thing to avoid mold and general grunge. Probably the birds don't care as much as we do. If what you have been doing, works - keep on. Maybe when I retire (next year - hurrah), I'll have a bit more time to do things "right" and will keep an open mind and do more research on this. In the meantime we can all enjoy the little fliers.

Just treat it like making sweet tea. Basically a toned down simple syrup and you need to follow the sanitary rules that go with that. Would you make a batch of sweet tea and leave it outside for days then just fill the container back up with tea?? Water+heat+sugar always equals science experiment. LOL. If you want to culture fungus that is the way to do it.

Doubt a hummer would like any of these ideas but the only thing I can think of would be these to stop fungus problems.
Make the feeder out of copper, natural anti fugal.
Add enough lemon juice to make the solution too acidic for fungus. I like real lemonade but not sure if bird's do?
Any who the problem does not originate from the water or the sugar so it doesn't matter whether it's boiled or not. The problem is with the container.

....and most hummingbird feeders are very hard to properly clean. When I used feeders I kept several sets so while one set was in use the others were in the dishwasher. It got too complicated and I have always preferred gardening to doing dishes so that is why I keep red flowers blooming for as long as I can. We usually have about a half dozen regulars buzzing around here, occasionally more. It is nothing like the mountainous areas where you can see them in great numbers. One time on Grandfather Mountain we saw so many in one place we couldn't even count them, there had to be several dozen. It seems hummers prefer the hills to the beach in the summer.

Melzer, I'm still seeing only the occassional hummer at our feeders. Usually by this time we have WWW III around our feeders. This year is definitely different! My unofficial guestimate is we're seeing about 10% of our normal activity for this time of year. Have yours returned yet?

Sadly I'm still on the hunt for my hummers here. It's partly my fault at this point though. We (my husband, & 16 yr. daughter) just got back from an 8 day trip to Colorado. I filled the feeders before I left and just now (day 12) I refilled one. Only after I saw one hummer buzzing around it. It could be the lone male I've seen around my bee balm. Too early to tell.

I did get to see lots of Broad-tailed hummers while in the high (7500 ft. altitude) mountain country of Colorado. My SIL had a large feeder up. For 3 days I was able to watch their antics.

Now here's my opinion of the boiling of water for food. I have well water, very good well water. Yummy water, truth be told. I feel like if my water is this good, why boil it. It can't be too much different than the water down in the creek nearby. Now if I lived in a development, where I only had city purified water, with chlorine and fluoride added, I would more than likely boil my water.

Very good point.
We do have our own well water, too. I filter it (stupid I know) to drink,
just because my husband is too stubborn to even have the quality of the water tested.
I guess I spent too many years in the city. My husband grew up on a mountain spring, so he doesn't have the same reluctance that I do.

I suppose the advice to boil the water may be an attempt to "cover your bases" in the case that the "reader's" water is not pure.

As long as they are happy.

We are also on well water here in Granville County. When I go to work in Durham (city with highly clorinated water), I carry drinking water in 2 reusable bottles. I would also boil if I was using that city water for birds or, at the least, let it sit for a day or so to evaporate the chlorine (boiling would be much faster). I wonder if boiling slows down any possible mold growth. I don't leave the feeder up long enough to get moldy, but I'm sure it would if not cleaned every day or so. The mold spores are around in the air all the time, so they can get into the feeder at any time - boiled or not. Maybe boiling retards other bacterial growth. Interesting question - do the "bird" experts have a consensus on this? It is also important to have a feeder that can be cleaned well - some of the really pretty ones are completely impractical to clean - more for show that for use with real birds.

I boil the water just because I use "city" water that does contain chlorine and heaven know what else and also it makes the sugar dissolve better. Now being a retired nurse, if we have to go into sterile technique then we should boil the feeder and ask the hummer to please use sanitizer on their beeks. Nature has a way of taking care of itself so I am not sure that any of this really matters. Just feed the beautiful hummers and enjoy them.

[quote="BSD" Nature has a way of taking care of itself so I am not sure that any of this really matters. Just feed the beautiful hummers and enjoy them.[/quote]

Yep, I agree

Okay, I'll get one of those sanitizer dispenser from the hospital where I work, put up a pole beside the feeder, and post a sign that it is mandatory for all drinkers to clean their beaks first (something like the H1N1 precautions last spring). Now the only problem is how are the hummers to push down the lever to dispense the sanitizer - I don't they are heavy enough for the job. This bird feeding is getting complicated. Hope the squirrels don't think they should have a sanitizer dispenser beside the seed stations which they raid all day.

Stillwood, they could use the new motion activated ones. You made clear the point I was trying to make. This can just get ridiculous and life is complicated enough let's don't make feeding the beautiful birds a big deal. Just enjoy!!
Now, a way to get rid of the squirrels---I'm up to listening to that.

I have a Saint Bernard, Collie and Australian Heeler. They pretty much keep all squirrels away from my yard.

Well I guess I was a bit impatient this year. I have all my hummers back as usual. I was told there had been an overabundance of natural flowers earlier in the year. This probably accounted for their absence from my feeders. But they are here, fighting and protecting the feeders as usual. I'm so pleased:)