Our banding project uses these as standard equipment. I've never seen the trochilids take the slightest interest in them. They appear to me to be totally safe.

This is the second time this has recently happened. I post a reply, I view the reply on the website, then a couple of hours later I find that it's been deleted.

Our banding project uses Ant Guards on all feeders. I've never seen trochilids evince the slightest interest in them. I consider them to be completely safe.

ccroulet - you have to make sure your browser is not looking at your cache to get the page but requests the latest version of the page, otherwise you won't see the post you just made. Clicking the refresh button or doing a shift-refresh will usually force this if it doesn't do it itself. Hopefully you can see your original post now! :-)

I am not familiar with ant guards, what chemicals are in them? The reason I ask, I would suspect hummers are very sensitive to any pesticide. Does anyone have a lable for this material or a MSDS sheet?

I don't get ants in mine but if you do I would suggest corn oil might do the trick with no hazardous side effects.

I make my own ant moats. It's cheap and easy and a little water keeps the ants away. I figure between sugar, seeds, and flowers I spend enough on my babies so I take little shortcuts where ever I can and I have 20 oz. soda bottles in unlimited supplies as I'm a diet pepsiholic. These are so easy to clean when I clean the feeders and the other birds like the gfinches, chickadees and titmice like to drink from them too and they look nice and don't detract from my feeders and flowers. No pesticides go near my feeders even if they are bird safe, I'm just not willing to take the chance they'd hurt my birds.

glo

The Ant Guard contains a disk (plastic?) that appears to be similar to the "Shell No-Pest Strip" of years gone by. There is a gap through wich a hummingbird could, theoretically, insert its bill, but I've never seen them investigate it. The Ant Guard enclosure is colored green. Corn oil or vaseline could, depending where you apply it, get on their feathers during feeder fights. I think the Ant Guard poses less danger than substances slathered on exposed hooks or hangers.

I use a liquid sweet ant bait called Terro containing borax/boric acid dribbled on the hook and top of my feeder works great. Be very careful choosing and using insecticides, never use an organophosphate insecticide around birds. The LD50 for borax/boric acid for quail is over 2000 mg/kg so don't freak out and say I'm risking hurting my hummingbirds, borax/boric acid is relatively non-toxic to birds and mammals. Plus hummingbirds don't come into contact with it anyway.

Hello! I'm only a few weeks into keeping a feeder set up for one lone male, and even newer to this wonderful forum, but I can share what works for me as far as keeping ants at bay (which were quick to find the feeder first thing).

It's a plastic bell-shaped guard that hangs in line with the feeder -You just spread a thin layer of petroleum jelly up inside the bell. I haven't seen an ant on the feeder since I started using this.

It's called Ant-Off Ant Guard by ArtLine. Excuse me if this item has been suggested before. And if anyone thinks that the use of a very thin layer of petroleum jelly could be a potential problem, please do advise! : )

Here is a link that might be useful: Ant Guard

Thanks for all the responses.Today a hummingbird actually stopped long enough to use the feeder! I guess ccroulet is right. The problem might be that I have a lot of butterfly bushes and trumpet vines blooming right now.It could be they just preferred the natural blooms over the sugar water.
gloK---How do you make your moats?
shadyswing---I've seen a similar product in a Country Store catalog. The Artline one looks nicer because of the 2 hooks.I have used the vaseline before but I have those big black ants and they walk right over it.Now to read the other posts and see what I can do about the bees and wasps (sigh)

I use bugsnub ant guards. No poison and no maintenance.