Keep the Nectar Flowing: Finding Peace at the Hummingbird Feeder

By Johanna Juntunen

A busy feeder! Photo: Lois Manowitz

Who doesn’t enjoy watching hummingbirds darting from flower to flower, or visiting feeders hovering in the air like magicians? But often, the party is crashed by uninvited guests: bees and wasps with an acute sense of smell. Their venom could be fatal to birds weighing only a few grams.

If your feeders are constantly covered in buzzing insects, you've likely seen the hummingbirds struggle to feed or avoid the feeder altogether. But how do you keep the insects away without harming the birds?

The problem with quick fixes

Popular "solutions" are often ineffective or even dangerous for hummingbirds. These include:

• Yellow bee guards: They don’t work because bees are attracted to yellow.
• Sticky Substances (like Vaseline): Online tips, such as putting some Vaseline on the feeder ports, harm the birds if they ingest it or get the sticky stuff on their feathers.
• Bee traps that kill the insects: Killing the insects is cruel and goes against the goal of peaceful coexistence with nature.
• Food additives: Peppermint oil to deter insects. It does not belong in hummingbird food. It is not found in flower nectar, and can be harmful for birds.

The best solution would be a feeder that excludes insects while welcoming hummingbirds, but does it exist?

Imperfect feeder design

There are two types of feeders: bottom and top-filled. I wanted to find out which feeder type attracts fewer bees and wasps. I headed to the Hummingbird Garden in Kenneth Hahn Park in Los Angeles, CA, in the fall of 2024, with both feeder types and homemade sugar water. I hung the feeders in the Garden for one-hour intervals in the morning, afternoon, and early evening for a total of six sampling days.

This is what I found.

The Bottom-Filled Feeder: Popular—But Problematic

Large-capacity bottom-filled feeders are very popular, but they have a key design flaw:

• Shallow Base: After being turned upside down during hanging, the sugar water flows into a shallow base. This makes the nectar easily accessible for both bees and wasps, even if the feeding ports are narrow.
• Dripping: When the feeder is hung, the sugar water often drips easily, and the sweet smell acts like a welcome sign for all insects.

In my field study, the bottom-filled feeder consistently attracted more insects than the top-filled type. 

Anna’s hummingbirds at the feeders. The bottom-filled feeder is on the left,
and the saucer-style, top-filled feeder is on the right. Photo: Johanna Juntunen

 

The Top-Filled Feeder: A Safer Bet

The main advantage of the top-filled, or saucer-style, feeder is its structure. The feeding ports are located above the reservoir of the food. If the feeder is not filled right up to the brim, the nectar does not come in contact with the feeding ports. This design prevents insects from reaching the food, while a hummingbird's long beak and tongue can easily reach the bottom.

When insects couldn't get the nectar from the top-filled feeder during the study, they simply flew over to the bottom-filled one next to it. 

Total visits by birds and insects by feeder type. Bees and wasps (Western honey bees, 
European paper wasps, and Western yellowjackets) visited the bottom-filled feeder 73 times, 
while the top-filled feeder had only 31 visits by insects. The bottom-filled feeder attracted more hummingbirds (246 visits) than  the top-filled feeder (90 visits). Visits are estimates based on video clips.

Is it a popularity contest?

Although the bottom-filled feeder attracted more insects, it also had more visits from hummingbirds during the study. This seemingly counterintuitive result may be due to a few factors:

• Familiarity: All other feeders at the Hummingbird Garden are bottom-filled. Hummingbirds may simply prefer the feeder shape they are used to.
• Time: The birds began to show more interest in the new, top-filled feeder toward the end of the experiment, which was expected as hummingbirds need time getting used to new feeders. This is also why it can take a while to attract them to a feeder in your garden.
• Popularity: Hummingbirds live mostly alone. They are social only during the breeding and nesting season to mate. The female takes care of the rest alone: nest-building, incubating, and feeding the chicks. Nevertheless, hummingbirds have learned new behaviors at feeders, including tolerating other birds and forming alliances with some of them. These behaviors could include popularity and other social cues relating to group dynamics, but this area requires more research.
• Design: The nectar level in bottom-filled feeders is always close to the feeding port, requiring less effort from the birds. They also seem to feel safer because the perches are lower than the feeding ports, allowing them to survey their surroundings better while eating. In contrast, the top-filled feeders require the birds to tilt their bodies forward, which may compromise their visibility and sense of security. For the same reason, hummingbirds don’t like to put their heads inside big flowers and opt for piercing outside of the petals to get the nectar.  
  
  

It is getting crowded here! A honey bee and a wasp are approaching the
popular bottom-filled feeder. Photo: Johanna Juntunen

The Cost of Competition

Additionally, the study's data showed that there is a negative linear relationship between bee and wasp presence and bird visits to the feeders. An increase in bees and wasps at the feeder resulted in fewer bird visits.

Relationship between bee and wasp presence and bird visits to the top-filled feeder (TF).

Relationship between bee and wasp presence and bird visits to the bottom-filled feeder (BF).

 

Small hummingbirds, which weigh only a few grams, actively try to avoid the aggressive insects as their stings can be lethal to them, although reports of fatalities are lacking. While foraging for flowers, a hummingbird can just fly to the next flower.

It is another story at a crowded feeder. Having to hover around, waiting for an open port, or contending with competitors causes extra stress and energy expenditure for the birds. This lessens the intended benefit of a human-supplemented resource.  

A honey bee is too close to comfort. Anna’s male (perched) and female hummingbirds
pay attention to the intruder, the female hovering, not ready to land. Photo: Johanna Juntunen

 

Until a perfect feeder gets invented…

All feeder types have their pros and cons. For small gardens, patios, and balconies, with only a few hummingbirds, I advise getting a small top-filled mason jar feeder or two to minimize fighting between territorial hummingbirds like Anna’s and Allen’s that defend their food sources aggressively. During migration, there is less time to fight when birds need to bulk up for the long trip.

In the well-designed mason jar feeders, the feeding ports are placed on the upper part of the jar, just below the lid. Bees and wasps cannot reach the food when the feeder is not filled up to the flower inserts, while hummingbirds with long beaks and tongues can reach the bottom of the feeder with ease.  

A resident Allen’s hummingbird enjoys the mason jar feeder in my garden in Culver City,
CA. Photo: Johanna Juntunen

By selecting a feeder based on the unique challenges in your environment, you can increase the chances that your hummingbirds get a much-needed, peaceful meal, preferably homemade with white table sugar (¼ cup) and clean water (1 cup). 

Top-filled feeders can be purchased in the Tucson Bird Alliance Nature Shop.

Johanna Juntunen is a conservation biology graduate student at the Project Dragonfly Global Field Program (GFP) at Miami University, Ohio. She is a hummingbird enthusiast, a lifelong birder, and a journalist. She writes about hummingbirds in her newsletter, Hummingbirds in Our Gardens.