Hummingbird FoodFeeding Hummingbirds Is Fun!Feeding hummingbirds is fun and making hummingbird food is easy. Hummingbirds eat almost twice their weight each day. Their main diet is flower nectar. As well as natural nectar, they supplement their diet with small insects, spiders, and tree sap. The insects provide protein and other nutrients they need. Some types of hummingbirds particularly the Ruby-throated and the Rufous, plus others have been seen eating tree sap from the holes that sapsuckers (a type of woodpecker) have made in trees. The sapsuckers don't know they are providing hummingbird food. Hummingbirds eat tree sap when there are not many flowers blooming. Hummers have a large appetite. They have to eat approximately twice their weight in food every day. They are high-energy birds and they burn a lot of calories every day. They also burn calories to keep warm especially during cold weather. If there is not enough natural food available for them, they are happy to eat from our feeders. Making Hummiingbird FoodFour cups water with one cup white sugar gives the twenty-five percent solution they like.Boil the 4:1 solution for a couple of minutes. This will kill any bad things that may cause the food to spoil. Cool the food before placing it in a clean feeder. Extra nectar may be stored in the refrigerator for a few days. Absolutely do not use honey to make the nectar. Honey can support a fungus that causes their tongues to swell and can cause their death. By the same token do not use artificial sweeteners. They do not provide them any nutrients to live on. Do not use them! It is not necessary to use red coloring in the food. There is enough red on the feeders to attract them and it is not necessary to color the food. Clean the feeder thoroughly before putting fresh food in it. Use a bottlebrush and/or a pipe cleaner to get into the small areas of the feeder. Clean with hot water and a little vinegar or bleach to kill any bacteria or fungus. Be sure and rinse thoroughly and rinse again. Clean the feeder and put fresh hummingbird food in it once a week and more often during very hot weather. If you do not want to make your own hummingbird food. There are many excellent commercial hummingbird food mixes you may purchase. Feeding hummingbirds simple and easy. 
My sister in Missouri has a lot of hummingbirds that eat up a bag of sugar every week. She has several 96 ounce and several 32 ounce feeders. She fills them every day and sometimes more that once a day. When you go out at her house to hang up a fresh feeder the hummers sound like a bunch of airplanes humming by your head. They are trying to get to the feeder you are hanging up. She has a total commitment to feeding hummingbirds, the flying jewels. I don’t have so many at my house. I am lucky to have three or four a season. My sister looks for the largest feeders she can find and I look for the smallest. And then most times I have to dump food to clean the feeder. She never has to dump food. She has to stay on her toes to keep the feeders full. I don't recommend a feeder like the straw feeder above. Ha! Ha! But this smart hummer knew where to find himself a drink. We like to use feeders with perches, so that the hummingbird can sit down while it is eating.
Hang the feeders in the shade between 3-7 feet off of the ground. Once the hummers find the feeder they will remember where it is. They know who is feeding hummingbirds. I don’t know how long hummingbirds live, but they remember where they have found food. We have a female hummer that has come for several years. Before and after she eats she flies around and looks into the windows by where the feeder hangs. If we don’t have the feeder up in the springtime before she arrives, we will know it is time because we will see her flying around the windows looking in. We sit out in the bird room every day looking at birds, butterflies, and other wildlife, so if she signals us, we hurry and put the feeder up. She remembers where she has found food. 
So hang another feeder in a different spot where they can’t see it. Hang it around the corner, behind a tree or higher or lower, etc. They can defend only one feeder at a time. Learn other interesting facts about hummingbirds. If you live where hummingbirds only come certain times of the year, put the hummingbird feeders up and start feeding hummingbirds in the spring. Take them down in the fall after you are certain all of the hummers have left for the season. Some parts of California, Arizona and Texas have hummers year round. So feeding hummingbirds takes a commitment to maintain the feeders all year. Where my California sister lives she gets lots of hummingbirds at her house, also. It only snows there every few years. One winter the snow caught a bunch of hummers at her house. They stayed all winter. She would bring the feeders in after dark to keep them from freezing. And then put them out again before daylight. Sometimes on cold days she would have to replace a frozen feeder with thawed hummingbird food from the house. She sent me a photo of her hummingbirds in the snow. If you want hummingbirds, but don’t want to maintain feeders,
plant flowers for the hummingbirds.
It probably is less work than maintaining the feeders and making hummingbird food. Besides flower are pretty to look at. |
There many different sizes, styles, and designs of hummingbird feeders available. If you don't have many hummers at your house, get a smaller feeder so the food won't spoil before they eat it up. If you have a lot of hummers, get the larger feeders so they won't go without food. And you will be making hummingbird nectar less often. 