Hummingbird Feeder And Ants

Hummingbird feeders will attract birds to your yard, but ants can be a problem. Learn how to keep ants away from hummingbirds with this simple DIY wood and ant moat hummingbird feeder project. Hummingbirds are tiny little birds that often get into mischief and seem to get stuck places that you thought impossible for such a small bird. There is a reason for this, hummingbirds are constantly looking for nectar to drink and the nectar is necessary for their survival. Hummingbird feeders have been developed to help strengthen this bond between hummingbirds and humans.

Hummingbird Feeder And Ants

If you are a hummingbird lover, then you have gone to great lengths to create a blissful space to attract hummingbirds, complete with flower beds, birdbaths, and properly placed hummingbird feeders. You may even delight in creating homemade nectar for your hummingbird feeders.

Everyone loves sugar, right? Hummingbirds and ants (and humans) alike. But we don’t want the tiny insects overrunning our garden hummingbird feeders. While hummingbirds do feast on ants, they don’t like to mix their savory and sweet. So they will stop feeding on nectar from feeders if ants take over.

When ants invade, they can prevent you from attracting hummingbirds, and they can call upon even more ants to create an ant problem in your garden. Today, we’re going to show you how to keep ants out of your hummingbird feeders.

Without further ado, here are 1some tips for how to keep ants out of hummingbird feeder or feeders:

1. Hang your hummingbird feeders with fishing line.

Give the ants a tightrope challenge—with fishing line. Fishing line is naturally very thin—even too thin for ants—and slippery on its own, so it works as a great deterrent for ants trying to climb to the hummingbird feeder. You’ll need to make sure the fishing line is strong enough to hold up the weight of your feeder and the resting weight of a hummingbird feeding on its nectar. Then, use the fishing line to hang the hummingbird feeder where you wish.

Fishing line is pretty easy to find in camping or fishing shops, hardware or craft stores, or even online. Make sure you select a fishing line that supports at least 2 pounds of weight and get enough length to cover the height you’re hanging your feeder or feeders from. Secure the line tightly to your feeder, and then attach the other end to the pole you’re hanging the feeder from.

2. Move the feeder often.

Keep ants on their toes by relocating your hummingbird feeder to different parts of your garden. This will prevent ants from coming back for more—oftentimes, ants will leave behind a scent trail to alert their colony to a delicious food source: sugar water.

Scope out a few spots you can hang the feeder, and move it around from time to time. Hopefully, in combination with a few more of our other feeder tips, this will throw the ants off and keep the ants away. Hummingbirds are mostly adaptable and will be able to find the new feeder location, but make sure that while you’re moving the hummingbird feeders to keep ants away, you’re not just picking up the hummingbird food source and moving it for no reason.

When the ants come marching and it’s time to move your feeder, make sure you keep feeders at least 7 feet apart from each other. And don’t move one feeder closer to another just to move it—space them out across your garden. A good place to look is near some small trees if you have them, as hummingbirds like to have safe places to perch or take shelter nearby. And don’t move them next to any other birdhouses or birdbaths.

See our interesting article on where hummingbirds live year round.

3. Install an ant moat.

Protect your hummingbird feeder like it’s a castle—with an ant moat! An ant moat is perhaps the most popular way to keep ants away from hummingbird feeders. Just like a moat around a castle, an ant moat is a little body of water that protects the hummingbird feeder. The ants will hopefully get stopped in their tracks in the ant moat’s water and not be able to make it to the nectar.

Ant moats are usually little cups of water placed above the nectar but are sometimes below or intricately installed within the center of dish-style hummingbird feeders. You can either buy a hummingbird feeder with a built-in ant moat, buy an ant moat that will attach to your hummingbird feeder, or DIY an ant moat at home. (See below for a quick step-by-step!)

Make sure you pay attention in the summer months, as the water in your ant moat will evaporate quickly. Keep the ant moat filled with water to keep ants from getting past it and into the hummingbird feeder. A dry ant moat is, well, no moat at all.

How to build a DIY Ant Moat

If you buy a feeder that doesn’t come with a moat installed, you can make your own at home. You can get fancier with nuts and hooks from a hardware store, but today, we’ll showyou how to craft an ant moat with some items you already have at home. (Want more information on building a DIY ant moat? Here’s a helpful video.)

What you’ll need:

A plastic soda bottle (select a size that makes sense for the size of your feeder)
Scissors or a utility knife
A wire coat hanger
A hot glue gun & hot glue
A drill with a thin drill bit

How to assemble your moat:

Remove the label from the plastic soda bottle, and use the scissors or utility knife to cut the top of the bottle off so you are left with a bowl shape with the cap. This bowl will be the moat you fill with water.
Next, cut off the bottom straight part of the coat hanger.
Drill a hole through the bottle cap, smaller than the diameter of the coat hanger.
Push the coat hanger through the hole in the bottle cap and twist the cap onto the top of the bottle.
Turn the bottle upside down and fill the cap with hot glue. You don’t want any leaks in your moat.
Be very careful not to get glue on the sides of the bottle or it will warp the shape and no longer be a round moat. It could even puncture a hole and render it useless.
Use a piece of cardboard or a popsicle stick to steady the wire hanger once the glue is in the cap so the hanger remains in the center of your bottle cap.
Give the glue 5 to 10 minutes to dry fully, bend the ends of your coat hanger in the same direction, and your ant moat is ready to fasten to your feeder!