To my astonishment, ants get into my hummingbird feeders. Or at least they used to.

To reach the feeder they have to climb up a 10-foot wall, walk upside down across a four-foot soffett sofett sofit soffet sofitt, soffit, (all right, dammit, you try spelling that without looking it up! ), find and crawl up one of the brackets holding the awning to the soffit, crawl along the awning framework until they find a 1/8" thick wire looped over the top rail, crawl four feet down that wire, negotiating a tricky loop along the way, get to the top of the feeder, walk down that and find one of the feeding holes, crawl through the hole into the nectar... and promptly drown.

I invented* a rudimentary cure for this, see the photo. A couple of tricks are needed. Drill the hole in the bottle cap a bit smaller than the wire so the wire has to be forced through it. This gives rigidity at the wire/cap interface so the reservoir stays straight. Seal the hole with a bit of RTV silicone on both sides. Fill the reservoir with water about half full (so wind won't slosh excess over the sides) and then add a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil to float on top so the water doesn't evaporate.

Now the ants, suitably drowned, collect in the ant trap instead of the feeder.

I have two feeders up, the purple one (shown) and a similar red one. Between them I am going through three and a half liters of nectar [water/sugar, 4:1 by volume] per day!

tanstaafl.

*Of course I invented it. Being the incredible genius that I am, it is inconceivable that anybody else could ever have thought of this.

"You keep using that word..."

Nice idea! I wish I'd thought of it.

I can only think of one minor improvement -- glue a second bottle cap, upside-down [edit: inverted from the first bottle cap], to the inside of the reservoir, so that you aren't relying on the single point of contact with the first bottle cap to keep the reservoir straight.

My mother had a half dozen hummingbird feeders, and had something very similar, although commercially prepared.

We used a few drops of dish soap in the water rather than oil, and cleaned them out occasionally.

Worked like a charm.

-jk

I don't think the few drops of dish soap would stop the water from evaporating, but rather was use to reduce the surface tension of the water and prevent some bugs/insects from walking across it.

Much to my surprise we had a hummingbird in our yard last year. So I guess to keep my daughter entertained we'll be feeding it this year

Doug, I look forward to more pictures of your hummingbirds, last years were quiet fantastic.

What happened to the homemade feeders?

I predict a time when the ants figure out how reach the feeder: clog the surface of the oil/water trap by sending massive numbers of ants to die, then using the flotilla of dead ant bodies as a bridge. They're right bastards like that.

Fire ants already survive in floods like this.

That's a good idea, but not necessary. I drilled the hole in the bottle cap enough smaller than the ~1/8" wire that it holds quite firmly. I just about had to use a hammer to drive the wire through the cap, and the silicone sealant was not really necessary to seal it water tight.

I'm not sure what sort of glue would stick to the inside of that reservoir in any case. Maybe a second bottle cap underneath the first one (oriented the same direction) might prove effective, but there wouldn't be a lot of contact area for the glue to hold them together.

tanstaafl.

I think not.

The only reason massive numbers of ants would attempt the feeder is if successful ants left a scent trail to bring more ants. And ants that make it past the oil/water trap and into the nectar still die and thus do not pass the word scent on to their brethren.

tanstaafl.

Not one hummingbird ever drank from it. They would flutter around it, but never got the idea that there was nectar there. The outer walls weren't high enough, so that even a light wind would spill the nectar.

I think the homemade feeder idea was something that someone thought up as a clever idea but never actually tested.

tanstaafl.

Certainly, the dish soap only drowned the ants. But the periodic cleanup was a breeze.

-jk

I had an interesting experience the other day...

During the afternoon lull when there are only one or two hummingbirds at a time, I moved very slowly, perhaps one inch per second, towards a solitary hummingbird at the purple feeder. He saw me coming, but decided I was not a threat because I was so slow. He actually let me reach up and stroke his tail feathers several times before he decided to leave, and he did not appear to be in panic mode when he flew away.

I wish I had pictures of that.

tanstaafl.

While refilling them, I occasionally would sit still and hold a feeder before rehanging any. Often I could get the hummingbirds to feed from it; I could feel the breeze of their wings on my hands and face as they buzzed around. Twice, a hummingbird landed on my fingertip.

Astonishing moments. Astonishing birds.

-jk

O-Kayyyy... Now what?

tanstaafl.

Put up a fake wasp nest near the feeder?

Put up some sort of mesh where the holes are bigger than hummingbird beaks but smaller than bees?

Give up? Nature wins?

Dilute the nectar a bit more, and/or put up a separate feeder for the bees with a stronger concentration of nectar than the hummingbird feeder.

Do I hear a buzzing noise from my Dyson?

tanstaafl.

I think vacuuming wasps will now be your full time job.

So probably many are alive but in your Dyson. You’re going to then do what when you pull the flap to dump them? I would guess run???

I'm thinking you buy three canisters and then just rotate between them, when the newest gets full, hope that the wasps are dead. If not, buy three more

In Belize they sell this insecticide in a aerosol can called Fish. Kills everything. Probably illegal in the US. Just spray something like that up the nozzle of your vacuum cleaner while it's running. Problem solved

BTW, Doug - love the watch.

Hopefully “Fish” will not turn the Dyson into a puddle of plastic on the floor.

Nah. Just chuck some shards of glass or fragments of cut-up drinks can in there. Might scratch the plastic, though.

Absolutely the only "jewelry" I own. Non-functional baubles don't appeal to me. I almost bought this used watch (~$16,000 off the suggested list price was tempting) but then I discovered that it wouldn't do square roots, so I crossed it off my list.

Not necessary. The bees do not survive the trip into the innards of the Dyson. A little research shows why.

"The Dyson vacuum’s outer cyclone rotates at 200 mph, removing debris and most of the dust while an inner cyclone rotating at 924 mph drives fine dust and even particles of cigarette smoke out of the air."

I have read that those are effective strategies. Even moving the feeders a few feet will sometimes work. However, I have solved the problem.

I noticed that the bees always clustered around one particular spot where the reservoir joined the base. They would pile up on top of each other there, leaving other parts of the feeder, including the little "flower" accesses, alone. With incredible powers of deduction, I surmised that maybe they piled up there because there was something there that they liked to eat. Another clue was that the bees pretty much ignored the red feeder, assembling only on the purple one.

I unscrewed the reservoir, daubed a generous helping of RTV Silicone onto the threads, reassembled it and let it dry.

No more bees.

tanstaafl.

This one should.

ISTR that bees' vision is at the blue/UV end of the spectrum, meaning that the purple feeder will be more obvious to them than the red one...

Nerd.

That is a great site with some extremely interesting articles. Thanks for the link.

... And no more ever getting the reservoir unscrewed again...

And no need ever to do so again.

tanstaafl.