What do you think you're going to do for them that no one else has thought of and for which you have no way of assessing the results? Just use the recommended tap water and white cane sugar in the recommended ratio. For goodness sakes!

THANK YOU, tima!!!

Please, just go with what we know, and don't experiment with wildlife unless you have permission from the Feds!

I agree, unless I have some type of Lab to test what I'm proposing it wouldn't be logical for me in doing so, and I wasn't planning too. Also come to think of it, maybe it's not so bad replicating flower nectar exactly so the hummers will still pollinate flowers.

I have posted before, with others disagreeing, that what we want is to attract hummers to our yards, balconys, and porches with as little as possible intrusion into their normal diets.

It's not our place to try to improve what nature has invented over millions of years. If you want to improve their diet, plant more flowers.

"Plant more flowers" sounds good. I've planted Salvia and a shrimp plant this year. As far as solution recipes go, this is just not an area of the hobby that permits a lot of tweaking and experimentation. It's very easy to have great success with the standard simple recommendation, and if you're looking for complexity (or "depth"), it just ain't here, and you'll probably do more harm than good by thinking too much and inventing stuff, the results of which you can't easily assess. Hummingbirds ain't audiophiles, and they don't need their attractors to act like them.

"Plant more flowers" is very very good. Heres an example for what happened in my yard. Last year during migration and before hummers were draining two 30oz glass pp209 feeders in two days time. This year I added many more flowers in my front flower bed to where it is nearly doubled plus the 4 feeders and the concentration was in the front yard. In the rear, I hung only one 30oz feeder never having to fill it in fact half-full was plenty. I am in the habit of just filling the feeders with what they will use in a 2-3 day period. So yes "more plants is very good"

Just use what we know is safe, best bet!!!

Steve - how many are you seeing now?

I'll add my voice to the "more flowers" brigade. But if you want to use a feeder, just bite the bullet and buy the commercial food - it's supposed to have all the nutrients the birds need. I have something blooming in my yard all year that they like & I always have a few hanging around.

You'd be much better off buying white cane sugar and making your own solution with tap water. Then you can spend the vast savings on something useful, like lottery tickets. Commercial nectar is a HUGE rip-off, and it always uses the pointless red dye. Avoid.

Oooh that's right we must get permission from the "feds" to do anything. I might agree with the plant more flowers concept except that some folks don't have the room or perhaps like the folks on the west coast, the water shortages mean no water for more flowers. In that case I guess a person would have to disguise their feeder to avoid the water police AND the California wildlife police AND the feds.

Hummingbirds are native in So. Cal., so it stands to reason that they would feed from native plants. Many low-water use plants attract hummingbirds, such as salvias and epilobiums, so you can have flowers during the drought.

Stick to plain water and sugar in the feeder. Half of the hummers diet comes from eating tiny insects, so they don't need supplements in their sugar water.