Hi, I just put up a feeder the other day too, however what I did was use a 1:4 ratio... 1 part sugar to 4 parts water. Maybe that will do the trick. Good Luck to you!

The normal ratio is 1:4 sugar to water not 4-1 and I dont boil mine pretty much a waste of time as soon as a hummer dips its bill in the mix its contaminated at that point. If the mix becomes cloudy go ahead and change the mix otherwise every 2-3 days is good. I use hot water and brushes to clean my feeders.

I read somewhere that they need A LOT of sugar in this weather when it's not so hot out to keep warm and for energy to migrate. So I really upped the sugar. Low and behold they sucked that up like mad. I just refilled it today and made it really strong like the last batch. See what happens.

If you up the ration 1-3 is plenty good this time of year which is what I put in my feeders right now. The natural nectar they get from most flowers is in the 22% range.

Sorry I meant 4 parts water to 1 part sugar. Today is the 3rd day & the nectar looks fine, I will change it tomorrow. They are flying & feeding on my butterfly bushes & lots of other flowers all day but are avoiding my feeder. I will bump up the ratio to 1-3 & see if that helps.

A word of caution to everyone. It's only May but I have already had black mold grow in one of my feeders. Please check your feeders carefully when you clean and refill them.

Mine get cleaned every third day, and once or twice a month I soak the feeder parts in a mix of bleach and water for 15 min, then run them through the dish washer. It seems mold is more prevalent this year than previouis years.

rob--- thats true rob Ive soaked mine already a couple of times. I would like to think that it would be common sense that people would watch out for that. I think certain types of feeders are even more apt to build up with the mold. Make no mistake people this stuff can be deadly if you let it go.

so far I haven't had any mold, I do look for it all the time. I use a bottle scrubber on it and so far so good. I change it once a week and so far that is sufficient.

About mold: I'm refilling my feeders every 1-3 days, and even in the So. Louisiana heat and humidity, I've found I can control mold very simply with hot tap water. When I take a feeder down to refill it, I:

1. Put the base under hot water (140F, hotter perhaps than in many houses with kids due to scalding concerns) from the faucet.

2. I fill and shake empty the glass bottle four times from the same faucet.

3. I turn the water off and fill the bottle with solution, letting the base soak in the meantime.

4. I empty the hot water from the base and flush it a couple of times with cool water.

I started doing this last summer, and I very rarely see any mold at all. That I do see is normally very easy to scrub out. (I've had two little spots in the last six weeks.) I used to see significant mold when I used cooler water out of fear of damaging the feeder, but the hot water hasn't been a problem, at least with my three Birdscapes "Rose Petal" feeders and Hummzinger saucer. (I have to say, back when I had mold, I was amazed at the power of a simple bleach soak compared to trying to scrub it away.)

Also, I should note that I stopped boiling water at the same time I adopted the new cleaning protocol and just use regular cold tap water for my solution, which is the usual 1 part sucrose to 4 parts water. I combine in a 2L plastic jug, shake vigorously for probably 30 sec, and it's ready to go.

This is all a heckuva lot simpler and faster than what I was doing before, and it works much, much better. Good thing, as I'm having to refill a couple of feeders a day and make solution every 2-3 days or so. The chirpers love it!