Bee problem
 

Does anyone have any suggestions for a quick fix with a missing bee guard on my hummer feeder?

I know I'm gonna have to venture over to Home Depot in the States to pick up a supply but the bees are really having a feast on the nectar and weasling their way inside the glass jar! :frustrated:

[ATTACH]75504[/ATTACH]

Any suggestions would be more than welcomed. :thumbs up

Is it just the one that's missing? If it is, I'd just plug the hole with something and let the hummers drink out of the other three ports. We can get bee guards at places like WalMart and some of the pet supply shops, too, so you might want to check locally before driving any distance to get them.

I have yet to see anything in Canada that sell Perky Pet replacement bee guards. :frustrated: Googling them, I found Home Depot and K-Mart stock them in the States.

It's just one port. What could I plug the hole with? :shrug:

What if I used a little piece of screening? Take the flower part off, put a piece of screen over the exposed hole stem then slide the flower back on? :shrug:

Screening might be too brittle or too stiff...maybe a little bit of cheesecloth? It won't keep the bees from sucking the nectar off the cloth, but it would at least keep them out of the feeder... :fingerscr

Maybe buy a new feeder and let the bees finish that one off. Bee's are important to the ecosystem and are dying off in the millions, they need all the help they can get :(

If you look closely, cell, you'll see that these are hornets, not bees. So cutting these off from their fast-food restaurant won't be detrimental to the bee populations :thumbs up

Hornet Problem
 

Oh Dear! :o My Bad! :(

:sorry: I guess I should of done a little more homework on Bees versus Hornets. :loser:

I have vinyl screen rements (not steel) that seems flexible but I also have cheesecloth. Maybe I'll just stuff the port with cheesecloth and call it a game. :thumbs up

Orioles are all gone but Todd's still coming around throughout the day and evening hours.

Yes. I vote just block it off with something. I'm not sure on the cheesecloth, as it will absorb the liquid, and thus your still feeding the hornets. Perhaps a small ping pong ball, or a round object of some sort, superglued into there would be good? if they cannot "GET" the food, they'll learn in a few days and go away.

I don't care if the hornets suck on the nectar from the soaked cheesecloth stuffed in the port. I just don't want them squiggling through the opening and flying around inside the glass jar. :frustrated:

Each of my feeders are missing a guard so I've concluded that I'm going to do one with window screen and stuff the other one with cheesecloth. A scientific experiment perhaps. :shrug: :D

Oh BTW....I not only have Todd but there were two...YES...two others sitting on the clothes line contemplating the feeders.

I was wrong and thought I only had one, [U][I]maybe[/I][/U] two but tonight--I saw three! :clap::clap:

The migration is in full swing, so there may be more! :D

I was so excited to see three of them today Hazel. Seen two together only a couple times this year. I've been very diligent with keeping the feeders clean and fresh nectar so it was a pleasant surprise to see three perched on the clothes line. :cloud9:

Going to go out and perform my scientific experiment tonight and see if the bees [SIZE="1"][COLOR="Red"](uhm, excuse me, Hornets :D)[/COLOR][/SIZE] can keep their greedy little wingy things off and out of the jar. :thumbs up

Could you get by with just one feeder hanging up? If so, just pull one of the bee guards off the spare feeder and use it to cover the naked port on your main feeder :thumbs up

LOL, cracking up at you. (I dont care if I feed them, I just dont want em in the jar) LOL.
sorry. I know its not exactly funny...its just....I dunno. I'm very tired tonight. sorry. (either that I'm easily amused). Oh congrats on the humming birds. we have two feeders up and last year we had about 15 or so. I didnt think we had that many but , my husband looked over at our flowering pear tree and started counting the ones that would be still long enough. he got to about 15 before they starting changing shifts.
My mom has a feeder up and she gets TONS of hbirds. She had me stand RIGHT next to a feeder, the little things were not miffed by me at all, they sat and drank anyways.
my husband still picks on me...as I put WAY too much sugar (before i started getting the nectar stuff) into the sugar water solution. we had some "very very hyper aka drunk" humming birds. THEY WERE VERY HAPPY those two days. LOL.
I'm not allowed near the sugar now.

[QUOTE=hazelrunpack;1021762]Could you get by with just one feeder hanging up? If so, just pull one of the bee guards off the spare feeder and use it to cover the naked port on your main feeder :thumbs up[/QUOTE]

They hop between feeders so I don't know which one would be the main or the spare? :shrug: :o

[QUOTE=renegaderuby;1021763]LOL, cracking up at you. (I dont care if I feed them, I just dont want em in the jar) LOL.
[/QUOTE]

Brought the feeders in to clean along with 11 live hornets! :sorry:, I love to see and feed hummingbirds but I have this phobia about anything that stings. Quickly grabbed the sink sprayer to rid of the hornets.

Gotta clean up my spraying water mess then off to test out the cheesecloth and screen. :thumbs up

:rip: Hornets.

I'd just hang the one feeder in the place that seems most popular with the birds--doesn't probably matter which one you hang--then just use the bee guards off the 'retired' one to protect all the ports of the one you hang. If the birds start defending the remaining feeder too fiercely, though, you might have to hang the second one back up in the end, anyway. :o

Are your feeders in full sun? We seem to have less trouble with hornets when the feeders are in a shady spot.

Yes Hazel. They are in direct sun. :(

I inspected the feeders and the screen one worked much better than the cheesecloth. The cheesecloth I think, was too loose and as you can see below, a hornet made his way into the port. :frustrated:

[ATTACH]75526[/ATTACH]

Here is the screening and other than a couple ants, it held up well today. :thumbs up

[ATTACH]75525[/ATTACH]

I going to see how much activity is out there for the rest of the day/evening. If not much happening, I may just take your advice and retire one of the feeders for the season.

I hear you on the stings. I'm allergic to ANYTHING that stings or pinches. The bite swells up three times bigger than any "normal" human being, and it HURTS. not just a ouch I got stung...a oh my god chop off my foot kinda feeling. It also sometimes gives me fever and usually a "rash" around the site. I am the "queen" of inscect repellant. if there is a mosquito five miles away it will come find me and bite me.
Our family game is "count the mosquito bites on >>>>me". Game.
Once they hit 22 I tell them to shut up, I dont want to know.
I once got stung right above my eyelid. Eye swelled shut for a week. THAT was fun.
We do not know what it was that stung me. But I pray to god that never happens again.

sorry. side tracked.
Still laughing at you. I can just see you with the sprayer hose....die, die you hornets. and then dripping wet mess later, as you are cleaning it up you mumble under your breath "*%)*%) hornets"
but I could be wrong
:D

[QUOTE=renegaderuby;1021900]I hear you on the stings. I'm allergic to ANYTHING that stings or pinches. The bite swells up three times bigger than any "normal" human being, and it HURTS. not just a ouch I got stung...a oh my god chop off my foot kinda feeling. It also sometimes gives me fever and usually a "rash" around the site. I am the "queen" of inscect repellant. if there is a mosquito five miles away it will come find me and bite me.
Our family game is "count the mosquito bites on >>>>me". Game.
Once they hit 22 I tell them to shut up, I dont want to know.
I once got stung right above my eyelid. Eye swelled shut for a week. THAT was fun.
We do not know what it was that stung me. But I pray to god that never happens again.

[COLOR="Red"][I]I hear yah on the stinging and man, above the eyelid - OUUUWWWIEEE! :yell:[/I][/COLOR]


sorry. side tracked.
Still laughing at you. I can just see you with the sprayer hose....die, die you hornets. and then dripping wet mess later, as you are cleaning it up you mumble under your breath "*%)*%) hornets"
but I could be wrong
:D[/QUOTE]

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: You especially got me on the "*%)*%)" part! :thumbs up :D

You know..a heavy duty fly swatter (we have one called the king swatter) should be a lot less messy than WATER. LOL (just saying).
Oh...trick my grandma taught me for if one gets to buzzing around ..and you cant "squash" it. (cause your like me and your too busy screaming and running)....
AQUA NET HAIRSPRAY (or just really cheap aerosal hairspray).

Spray the little "darlings" and when it dries they get so sticky they cant fly. SWAT! dead darling.
This also works for giant water bugs, and any other indesiable creepy crawly bug.

We used to have SO many hummers when I lived in Utah. They were all different colors, and so pretty! :lovestruck::cloud9:
For about 5 yrs we had a hummer nest just outside the front door. It was on a ledge on our wrought iron railing. There would be a couple tiny little eggs every spring, with the new babies eventually flying off on their own. Some one told me it's unusual for them to nest in the same spot, but like I said, it was every yr for about 5, then they just left :shrug:
But we used to have probs with hornets as well. Though I never did figure out how to keep them away!

Nice story Rgeurts. It's amazing that a hummer's eggs are the size of a tic tac and their nests the size of a 1/2 golf ball! :crazy: Too bad your hummers didn't stick around and if you or anyone can figure out how to keep darn hornets off nectar feeders, please let us know! :lightbulb:

How is the screening working out, DOG? :fingerscr

Brought both feeders in tonight to clean. There were 2 dead hornets in the cheesecloth port so I replace the cheesecloth with screen for the time being. As luck would have it, my daughter is coming home on Thursday from Virginia so she's going to stop in at a Home Depot and pick up a pack of Bee Guards. :clap: She's such a good girl. :angel:

:highfive: