Ants in my Humming Bird feeder.

Ruth n Jersey

Ruth n Jersey

Well-known Member
Location
Northern New Jersey
Does anyone know how to keep ants out of humming bird feeders? We have 2 feeders and enjoy watching the birds while we have dinner on our porch. The feeders have a thick nylon cord that is hung from a metal hook. I guess the ants travel down the string into the feeder. Many of them actually drown in the sugar water which I then have to change,sometimes twice a day. Do you think a thin wire instead of the nylon cord would help? I make my own syrup with no food coloring added. The feeder is bright red and that is enough to draw them to the feeder but I do get tired of constantly making the syrup because of the ants.
 

Ruth n Jersey said:
Does anyone know how to keep ants out of humming bird feeders? We have 2 feeders and enjoy watching the birds while we have dinner on our porch. The feeders have a thick nylon cord that is hung from a metal hook. I guess the ants travel down the string into the feeder. Many of them actually drown in the sugar water which I then have to change,sometimes twice a day. Do you think a thin wire instead of the nylon cord would help? I make my own syrup with no food coloring added. The feeder is bright red and that is enough to draw them to the feeder but I do get tired of constantly making the syrup because of the ants.
Click to expand...

Got me curious, as we run a half dozen hummingbird feeders...have had yellow jackets but not ants. Anyway, here's what I found:

cut a water bottle in half, drilled a hole in bottom just big enough to fit the coated wire that holds the feeder on the shepherds hook. Feed the wire through, set the "moat" on top of the feeder, then sealed the hole in the water bottle so no water would leak out. Let sealer (bathtub sealer) set up, add water after dried, and no more ants in the nectar.
Click to expand...

birdfeeder_l.jpg
 
The ants hang around it but never IN it.

Blame them on Noah; He shouldn't have allowed them on board !

Now they're EVERYWHERE ! On my kitchen counters; they come in via my morning newspaper which is left on my driveway
every day. Lately, I'm buying RAID in 50 gallon drums.
 

The only way to get rid of the ants is to kill their colonies or ant hills or whatever you want to call them in your yard.

There are ant traps for this. You put them down around the nest and they crawl in and then take the poison bait back to the hill.

They then feed it to the queen and the larvae and the whole colony dies.

Even worse than ants are earwigs. Boy are they ever ugly creatures. I haven't seen any this year because I think we had a hard winter.
 
Similar to Thomas's suggestion, a homemade ant moat. Plus I read that using a single thread of fresh water fishing line will help keep ants out. Never fed hummingbirds....good luck! :)

 
I made up a couple of "cup's" using wire and copper pipe end caps...similar to the picture Seebreeze showed. I suspend the hummingbird feeders under the cap, and fill the cap with a small amount of motor oil. The ants climb down the wire, but have to traverse the motor oil "moat", before they can reach the feeder....they never make it. Every time I refill the feeder, I empty the old oil, clogged with gobs of ants, and restart the process.
 
SeaBreeze said:
Don, is the oil harmful to the birds?
Click to expand...

No, the oil never gets near the birds, or feeder. I drilled a small hole in the cups, and soldered some heavy wire into the hole, to suspend the cup to the tree, and the feeder to the cup. I fill the cup about 1/2 full of oil,,,perhaps an ounce, and that leaves plenty of room for the ants to collect without overflowing the cup. You could use almost any liquid oil, diesel fuel, etc., but I use motor oil since it won't evaporate over time.
 
I had the same problem with ants on my hummingbird feeder. They were coming down the hook at the top. My low tech solution was to coat the top of the feeder with Vaseline. I did get a few ants that tried, but they got stuck and soon they didn't come back. In your case, I would coat the nylon cord with Vaseline as well.
 
Thanks for all the hints on keeping the ants out of my hummingbird feeder. I am going to try the least time consuming way first and work my way up. I already have indoor/outdoor bug spray that is not harmful to animals or birds. I'll soak the cord with the stuff and wipe the top with it, also the wood that the feeder bracket is attached to. Time will tell.
 
Nancy the spray I was using was Spectracide Bug Stop. I had an old container that read not harmful once dried. The new one says it is harmful and doesn't mention about it being ok when dry. I won't be using it on the feeder. Because it does say you can use it indoors and since I have no pets other than my bird who stays upstairs. I spray the edges in my basement because of spiders. It does a good job for that purpose although it doesn't last 6 months as stated. It doesn't stain or have an odor and the spiders I don't need.
 
I use a small red "Perky-Pet Ant Guard" that I found at Amazon.com. You can also find them at Lowe's. Costs about $5-6 bucks and they really work great! We had a real bad problem with ants getting on and inside the feeders. The hummingbirds won't feed there if there's ants there.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top