At our recent Living with Wildlife SIG meeting, the speaker, Mary Ann Melton, mentioned the standard recipe for hummingbird nectar which you can prepare at home.
The recipe is:
1 cup water
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Basically, this is a 4 parts water to1 part sugar mixture.
You need to dissolve the sugar. You can boil the water/sugar mix or even just melt the sugar in hot tap water. Cool the mixture before using and refrigerate any you do not use immediately.
Do NOT use red food coloring. Your feeder should have red to attract hummingbirds, but the red dye found in most commercial mixes is not needed and may be harmful.
Clean your feeder and use fresh nectar every few days, especially in hot weather. One recommendation is to have two feeders so you can clean the feeder with bleach that will kill the black soot that forms on the feeder. Alternating the feeders lets the chemicals air out between uses.
Using a hummingbird feeder should not preclude you from planting flowering plants in your yard to attract hummingbirds. There are several sources for plants to attract hummingbirds. You may want to check out the Native Plant Society of Texas, the Williamson County Master Gardeners and the Sun City Garden Club books at the Sun City monitors' desks at Cowan Creek and the Social Center, to name a few.
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