Preventing ants from reaching the pole of a hummingbird feeder will take a little more work but is readily done at feeder level.
Insect repellers: techniques for warding off ants To prevent ants from destroying your hummingbird feeder, you should lower the pole into a concrete base with a molded ant moat before the concrete hardens. A homemade bottle cap, or cork, can fit into the pole’s groove and seal watertight. To improve upon this, you should use double-sided tape on the base of the pole.
You are reading: How Do I Keep Ants Out Of My Hummingbird Feeder
While it is possible to keep ants away from a hummingbird feeder by taking action solely against the pole, it is preferable to take action only against the feeder itself.
Keep that in mind because it can be challenging to design an ant deterrent on what is essentially a metal bird feeder pole, especially considering that manufacturers have basically mastered techniques to keep ants off at the feeder level.
By building an ant moat around the base of the bird feeder pole, you can keep ants from reaching it.
You should not move your hummingbird feeder from its current place because of an ant problem, so let’s just worry about keeping the ants away from your pole-mounted feeder for the time being.
Your hummingbird feeder will still be accessible to ants even if you use an inexpensive ant moat that hangs from the bracket holding your bird feeder pole.
It may seem extreme, but my answer to the ant problem will prevent further ascents of the pole.
You may make an ant moat at ground level by burying the pole of the bird feeder into a concrete foundation and then filling the deep mold you made with water. The pole will be in the center, out of the ants’ reach.
Making a do-it-yourself pole ant moat is a slightly more involved approach. Slot a coke or soda bottle, quartered on the lid side, onto the pole at a height of 1 foot from the ground.
On the downside, you’ll need to place a clamp or bolt underneath the bottle cap to make a snug fit; eventually, you’ll need to use some sort of sealant to keep the contents from leaking.
Putting double-sided tape on the base of the pole is a tried-and-true method for preventing ants from entering your hummingbird feeder.
Situate feeder pole in water
One of my more extreme methods for keeping ants away from a hummingbird feeder pole is the same one I would use to keep ants away from any pole from which bird feeders of any kind were hung.
So that no ants ever reach the pole on the ground, I would dig a moat in the grass to keep them at bay.
So we’re on on the same page, an ant moat is anything that can hold water; ants are trapped before drowning in the water with the pole placed in the center, just like invading armies are kept at bay by a moat around a fortress.
To construct an efficient ant moat, use a concrete slab as a base.
Hummingbird feeders can now be permanently embedded in cement, though a preferable option would be to utilize a hollow pipe inserted into the foundation to keep the pole removable.
The hummingbird feeder should be placed in the center of a one-square-foot concrete base, and a deep ant moat should be formed around the pole.
The underside of a bowl, dish, or anything else with enough depth to construct the proper ant moat, which must remain sealed to keep water, can be used to make this mold.
You’re trying to protect your hummingbird feeder from ants, right? With this ground-level ant mount, you may accomplish just that, as it is created in a solid concrete base. This concrete base may be easily removed from the ground without breaking and used elsewhere.
Keep ants off at Hummingbird feeder level
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Only a hanging hummingbird feeder, the best sort, may be used to keep ants away, thus your feeder serves no other use.
If you find any of my suggestions for warding off ants from your hummingbird feeder to be too time-consuming or costly, then you can rest assured that you need do no further action than placing a physical barrier between your feeder and the ants.
Because of this, ants now have free reign over the bird feeder pole, and only ants will be able to safely fall onto the feeders. In the case that a swarm of ants descends upon your pole, it is best to thwart them at the source, rather than waste time trying to chase them away from the feeder.
The solution is to suspend a plastic dish that has been labeled as an ant moat.
The ant moat can be hung from either of the pole’s mounting brackets, and the hummingbird feeder can be hung from a separate hook positioned directly below the ant moat.
The ant moat is filled with water and a bird feeder of some kind is suspended from the bottom. There is no need to attach a separate ant moat if you purchase a hummingbird feeder that already includes one.
The plastic deep dish ant moats that hang between the pole bracket and the feeder are, in my opinion, the greatest ant moats for hummingbird feeders.
Ant moats are not only inexpensive and simple to set up, but they also prevent ants from entering the feeder and disrupting the flow of honey.
Mount DIY bottle ant moat on pole
To prevent ants from climbing the pole of a hummingbird feeder, rather than the feeder itself, you must first allow them a small amount of ascent
At this stage, you can take matters into your own hands by constructing a homemade ant moat for your bird feeder out of a plastic bottle, such as a coke or soda bottle, and some kind of sealant to keep water from leaking.
Start by removing 5 inches of a used soda or coke bottle’s top. Toss the lid; it’s not needed at the moment.
You would only be keeping the top of the bottle, which is around 5 inches in height (or about a quarter of the bottle from the lid side), while recycling the rest of the plastic bottle.
If you want to attach a bottle top to your hummingbird feeder pole, do it when putting the pole together, or slot it on through the bottom of the pole before driving the pole into the ground.
You’ll need to find a means to secure the bottle top to the pole once you’ve slotted it up about a foot from the base, and that’s on top of keeping any water from spilling out of the cap when you fill the bottle.
I recommend using a nut, bolt, or a workshop clamp to secure the bottle cap.
Because water is what will be utilized to fill the bottle to the very top, it is essential to first produce a tight fit from the pole fitted into the lid.
Now, use pond sealant or another sealer to make a handmade bird feeder pole ant moat that won’t leak.
Don’t spread stuff on pole
To offer you the best chance of warding off ants from your hummingbird feeder pole, I’ve prioritized the solutions I’ve discussed so far.
Greasing the pole or using a product like Vaseline will deter ants from the hummingbird feeder, but these methods, while effective in the short term, are impractical in the long run because of their expense and maintenance requirements.
Sticky substances are not something I’d recommend slathering on your hummingbird feeder pole because they’ll create too much of a mess and demand too much maintenance.
Sticky tape is a fast, clean, and simple alternative to using Vaseline or grease on the hummingbird feeder pole.
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Use double-sided tape, and apply it about 5 inches wide on the pole; the ants will be trapped on the outside sticky section as they try to climb over it.
Hummingbird feeders are most effective when placed in a sunny area with enough of clearance for the little birds to hover and feast.
Unfortunately, double-sided tape isn’t designed to withstand the elements, so protecting it from the sun and rain is essential.
Because ants can only reach to nectar-filled feeders at the bottom of the pole, this is exactly where you should concentrate your efforts to keep ants away from your hummingbird feeder suspended from the pole.
If your bird feeder pole is made up of several pieces, I recommend using my methods to impale each piece separately into the ground.
Clean up nectar around pole
Even though ants can be discouraged from congregating around a hummingbird feeder by keeping the area free of sugar, they will be attracted to the area if the nectar from a homemade feeder is left out.
Naturally, ants will only nibble on any spilled nectar on the ground right below the feeder, while others will continue climbing your bird feeder pole in search of the purest nectar possible.
Keeping nectar contained is essential, so if your hummingbird feeder springs a leak, you’ll need to either find a means to fix it or buy a new one.
An added benefit of a leak-proof hummingbird feeder is that it will discourage the presence of other insects, such as bees.
Cleaning up spilt or leaking sugar water on the outside of the feeder everyday is the best approach to clean your hummingbird feeder without committing to a full clean via feeder disassembly in the event of an ant infestation.
When there are damp spots on the pole where nectar has pooled, ants will swarm at the base of the feeder, and others will work their way up the pole.
There’s no way to prevent ants from entering the feeder if the pole and hummingbird feeder aren’t spotless all the time. Ants will swarm no matter what, so it’s best to create either a homemade moat at ground level or a commercially available hanging moat.
The only thing you’re doing right now is keeping the ants away from the sugary water in your hummingbird feeder and anywhere it may have spilled.
To summarize up
Creating a DIY ant moat or ant trap at the foot of the bird feeder pole will deter ants from entering the feeder and eating the nectar.
You can watch as ants are drowned before they can reach the pole of the hummingbird feeder, which is balanced in the middle of a flat bowl filled with deep water.
In contrast to the common practice of impaling a bird feeder’s pole into the ground to maintain its stability, you can take things to the next level by anchoring the pole to the ground with concrete. In this base, you can now make a form to fill with liquid.
Now you have a DIY ant moat, molded into the concrete base while it was still wet; however, it must be kept sealed so that water doesn’t leak through.
A bottle solution set by the homeowner about a foot above the ground around the bird feeder pole acts similarly to an ant moat at ground level.
A plastic coke or soda bottle, with its lid intact, is sliced into thirds or less and then slid onto the pole either at the bottom of the bird feeder’s assembly or through the lid. The use of pond sealant or anything similar to make a tight lid to pole seal is essential for avoiding leaks.
A nut or bolt placed beneath a bottle secured to a pole will ensure the bottle doesn’t move around while being filled with water.
In an effort to keep ants from ascending your hummingbird feeder pole, you should never apply a thick layer of any kind of cream or grease.
A more effective strategy is to use double-sided sticky tape to catch the ants and keep them away from the hummingbird feeder pole.
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Category: Birds
