The Ants and Me

Several years ago I happened upon a lady that had several funny looking bottles of red-colored water hanging from trees.  While speaking with her about a proposed building project I noted UFOs coming and going from the water jugs on a regular basis.  When I asked what those things were she answered, “They’re hummingbirds.”

Not being familiar with the little darting avian critters I was paying more attention to them than to my future client.  I became fascinated with their rapid returns to the feeders, and their continuous wing beats, which were just a blur, that held them in place while they drank.

When I finally arrived home I mentioned to my wife what I had seen during the day.  My wife likes it when I occasionally speak to her.  After my excited narration of the hummingbird escapades she was insistent that we purchase a feeder to possibly entice some of the little oversized bumble bees to our abode.  So it was that she ultimately spent my hard-earned money to buy a small glass jug that hung upside down to dispense sugar water for birds.

Almost immediately we discovered that ants like sugar water at least as much, and probably more, than do hummingbirds.  In less time than it takes to tell about it, we had an overload of ants crawling all over the feeder.  Apparently ants are more powerful than hummingbirds because when the ants were present the birds weren’t.  As my wife seemed to want to watch birds more than ants she asked me to do something about this situation.

As I had the feeder hanging on a porch rail where the little wifey could see it through her kitchen window a solution seemed practical and easy.  I sprayed the rail near the feeder with ant killer.  That should fix the little buggers.  It hardly slowed them down.  I believe they learned to hold their breath while they continued on their merry way.  Well, what now?

No ant is going to outsmart me.  I shopped around until I found some old-fashioned fly stickers.  I cut off pieces and placed them around the rail some 2” wide on both sides of the feeder hanger.  Let me see them get to that feeder now.  When I checked the next morning I got the surprise of my life.  The ants had pried the fly sticker material away from the rail, propped it up with twigs, and were waltzing through between the sticker and the rail like a small tunnel.  All I was doing was providing them a shady spot to rest occasionally.

After doing some on-line research I found others had this same problem.  Some enterprising person was manufacturing a little water tub with a vertical string right through it.  By attaching this to the rail, and suspending the feeder from it, no ants could get across the water barrier.  When I checked the following morning an ant was there apparently giving swimming lessons.  I smacked him.

The next morning I approached sure that I would find a nice clean antless feeder.  No such luck.  When I got there little ants with hard hats were crawling all over it.  Some were carrying toothpicks.  Some had glue.  They were building a bridge across the moat.

Anyone want to buy a practically new hummingbird feeder?