My Hummingbird Feeder Drips! How Do I Make It Stop?

Personally, I love the feeders with the stoppers and so do my hummingbirds. Unfortunately, these type of feeders have earned a reputation for dripping. You don't have to live with the sticky mess that these feeders seem to cause. According to Parasol’s (a leading manufacturer in the hummingbird feeder industry) website, here are some tips that will make using your tube-type feeder less messy and more enjoyable:

“Tips for Using Tube-Type Feeders

Tube-type hummingbird feeders have been around for a long time and are very popular with hummingbirds because they simulate the tube shape of many nectar-bearing flowers. However, because these feeders utilize a vessel filled with water resting on top of a small column of air, they may occasionally drip.

How to stop the dripping? There is no perfect answer - feeders will drip occasionally. However, we do have several recommendations to minimize dripping, so that you can truly enjoy your feeder.

1. Most importantly: always fill the feeder completely full with cool nectar. Insert the stopper and invert quickly to avoid any air entering the feeder. Tube feeders operate on a vacuum principle. Only if the feeder is initially filled completely full will the vacuum form!

2. Only hang your feeder in shade or partial shade. The cooler the feeder, the less likely it is to drip. Try a PAR·A·SOL ® Shade.

3. Make sure to keep the feeder very clean by regularly cleaning the vessel with hot water and a bottle brush. Do not use soap as its residue may cause your feeder to drip. Try periodically using a vinegar rinse to thoroughly clean your feeder and then rinse well with hot water.

4. Last resort: place stopper assembly in very hot water to soften the tube. You can bend it slightly to increase the angle. This will stop dripping, but might make it more difficult for nectar to come down the tube.

5. Dripping too much for you? Try one of our top-feeding hummingbird feeders.”

Before giving up on your vacuum style feeder, try these simple tricks. I have found them to substantially reduce the amount of nectar dripping out of my feeders, reducing the sticky mess and the amount of wasted nectar.

Time To Put Out The Hummingbird Feeders!

The hummingbirds are back! Time to put out the hummingbird feeders!

Before hanging up your hummingbird feeder, make sure to clean it out really well. In our glass feeders we use a rinse of 10 parts water to 1 part bleach solution. (If you have a plastic feeder, be careful. The bleach may discolor it). Rinse it really, really, really well with hot water. But, again, be careful! The feeder may be slippery when wet! Let it the feeder cool before adding your nectar.

Your homemade nectar can be made from 1 part sugar (white/cane sugar) to 4 parts water. The traditional way of making your nectar calls for *boiling to make it easier to dissolve the sugar and to purify the solution so that it will stay fresh longer. Let the nectar cool before pouring it into your feeder. -Please DO NOT add red food coloring or dye, or honey to the nectar.

You may store any unused nectar in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

*I do not boil my nectar (I use my nectar bottle) as, according to Lanny Chambers, "It's not necessary to boil the water. The microorganisms that cause fermentation don't come from the water; they are transported to the feeder on hummingbird bills."

Hang your feeder and enjoy!!!

Spring Is Near!

Boy, ... time gets away from me! It's been a while since I've posted and I can't believe that Winter is almost over and Spring is near. And with the new season come the hummingbirds! Yay!

I found this amazing "mini-documentary" of baby hummingbirds on YouTube and thought I'd share it with you. It's about 3 1/2 minutes long and enjoyable every minute.

How Do I Keep Bees Away From My Hummingbird Feeder?

Fortunately, I haven't had a problem with bees at my hummingbird feeders. But, since I'm often asked how to keep bees away from feeders, I've done some research on the subject and this is what I've found.

• Bees are attracted to the color yellow. -If you have yellow on your feeders and you have a bee problem, you may consider painting over the yellow with red nail polish. Once the polish is dry, you'll need to wash the feeder thoroughly before filling and re-hanging it.
• Try diluting the nectar to a 5:1 solution (5 parts water:1 part sugar). The nectar will be diluted enough for the bees to lose interest, but the hummingbirds will still enjoy it.
• Try setting out a saucer of nectar just for the bees. Mix the solution 2:1 (two parts water, 1 part sugar). Set it out of the way to avoid family and friends getting stung. If the bees have trouble finding it, you can set it near the hummingbird feeder that they were originally invading and just move it away a few feet at a time over the course of a few days.
• You can also try giving the bees their own feeder. Again, mix the nectar 2:1 and hang it in an out of the way location.

If you have any tips or tricks that you've tried and that work, we would love to hear from you!!

How Do Hummingbirds Get Nectar From A Feeder?

I'm often asked how hummingbirds are able to retrieve the nectar from the top feeding hummingbird feeders. Here is the answer: Hummingbirds lap up the nectar with their tongues, much like a dog laps up water... Only at a much faster rate. Some experts say a hummingbird's tongue can flick in and out at about 15X per second. And, their tongues are unusually long. About one and a half to two times the length of its bill. So, they have no difficulty in reaching the nectar from inside the glass flower feeding tubes.

You can see how they use the feeders by watching the video by Parasol. You can view it by clicking here: Watch Parasol Movie . In some of the clips, you can actually see the hummingbird's tongue inside the feeder. Cute little buggers!

Ants in My Garden

My hummingbirds alerted me to the fact that there are ants in their feeder. (When I hung the feeder, I didn't think the ants could possibly find it, so I didn't immediately hang it with an ant moat)...

They let me know by flying around the feeder in a frenzy and chirping louder than usual. At first I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about, but upon closer inspection, I, too, noticed the pesky, little buggers.

I brought the feeder in, dumped out the old syrup, thoroughly cleaned the feeder with hot water and a little bit of bleach, and refilled it with the fresh, ant-free hummingbird nectar. I hung it back up with the newly added ant moat, and, voila! The ants should not be able to get to it, right?

Well, when I hung it back up, I failed to see a branch from my Cape Mallow touching the feeder which allowed the ants to bypass the ant moat and use this offshoot as a bridge. Of course, I didn't notice this right away. But, my birds did! So, I got to go through the whole process again! This time, though, I demolished the ants' overpass to the feeder.

I should know better than to try to hang a hummingbird feeder and think that the ants will not find it. It's very rare around here. I have to say, though, I haven't had a bee or wasp problem, ...knock on wood!

See our selection of glass hummingbird feeders that are designed with beauty and style in mind!