Hummingbird Food Sugar Ratio
Making your own hummingbirds nectar is just one more way you can add to
your personal joy of bird watching.
There is a kind of satisfaction you will get from watching the
hummingbirds visiting your feeder and enjoying the hummingbird nectar that
you yourself have made.
Making homemade hummingbird food is really very easy and only takes a few
minutes to do. Add that to the fact that you can even save a little bit of
money and suddenly there is plenty of reason why you would want to learn how
to mix hummingbird food.
Hummingbird Food Sugar Ratio Instructions:
hummingbird nectar ingredients
1. tap water
2. granulated white table sugar
When you make your own hummingbird food you will want to get it as close
as you can to the real flower nectar found in nature. To get your
hummingbird food sugar ratio to taste like the real thing, you will need a
hummingbird
food sugar ratio of 1 part sugar to 4 parts water. I part granulated white
table sugar to 4 parts tap water.
1. Put the 4 parts water in a pan on your stove top and bring to a boil.
2. Stir in the 1 part sugar and continue stirring until the sugar is
dissolved.
3. Take the pan of hummingbird food off the heat and let the nectar cool.
Now you can fill your feeder and store any excess nectar in the
refrigerator. Your excess nectar will stay fresh for up to 2 weeks in the
refrigerator.
Just white granulated sugar and water, no other
hummingbird nectar ingredients are added.
Red food coloring, according to some, may be bad for the hummingbirds, so to
be on the safe side don't use it in your hummingbird nectar recipe. The red
color of your feeder will be plenty of red to attract hummingbirds.
Now that you know how to make nectar the only other thing you need to do
is to be sure to keep fresh nectar in your feeder. Hummingbirds won't come
to a feeder that doesn't contain fresh nectar. Eventually the spoiled nectar
will produce mold and bacteria that will harm the hummingbirds and make a
mess out of your feeder.
The way to keep your hummingbird nectar fresh is to change it every so
often. As a general rule:
If the temperature doesn't get above 70 you
will probable be able to go a week without changing the nectar. Once the
temperatures begin to rise you can follow the guide below.
High temperatures
Change nectar after
71-75
6 days
76-80
5 days
81-84
4 days
85-88
3 days
89-92
2 days
93+
change daily
These are general guidelines just to give you an
idea of how often you will have to change you nectar. If the nectar in your
feeder starts to look cloudy, that is an indication that it needs to be
changed right a way.
If you see black spots growing in the nectar, you have
waited too long and should have changed it sooner.
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Once mold starts to grow in your feeder you will
have to sterilize it. You will have to soak your feeder in a mild bleach
water solution consisting of 10% bleach and 90% water. Soak your
feeder for an hour to kill the mold. To help clean out the mold
you may need to buy a set of brushes that will
reach inside the feeder and into the feeder holes. |
When your hummingbird feeder is done soaking,
thoroughly rinse the feeder with water 3 or 4 times to make sure all traces
of the bleach water are gone.
To make feeder cleaning an easier task, you should get a
hummingbird feeder that's easy to take apart, so you will have easy access to those hard to
reach places inside the feeder where mold might grow.
Here is a feeder that does all that and more.......
Aspects 12oz Humzinger Ultra With Nectar Guard
It's only
$28.18 and
has several features that makes it well worth the price.
The
Humzinger has
patented Nectar guard tips which are flexible membranes attached to the feed
ports that prohibit entry from flying insects, but allow Hummingbirds to feed as
usual. The Humzinger also has a built in ant moat that will stop crawling
insects from getting to the nectar. It also has raised flower ports that divert
rain.
This mid-size nectar feeder has a 12 oz. capacity and can be hung or post
mounted with hardware provided. It has four feeding ports for hummingbirds and
is made of unbreakable polycarbonate. Easy to clean.
For ease of cleaning and protection from bees,
wasps and ants, this feeder can't be beat.
Have fun with your hummingbirds, keep
your feeder clean and I
hope you enjoyed this article about the hummingbird food sugar ratio.
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