Try TikTok's Clever Trick To Keep Bees From Invading Your Hummingbird Feeder

Setting up a hummingbird feeder is a fantastic way to add life to your yard in addition to feeding all the hungry birdies. The thing is, once you put out the sugar water mixture, you're sometimes going to attract a lot more than hummingbirds. They aren't the only ones that take a liking to sweetness — bees also have a sweet tooth, and they won't hesitate to invade that feeder like it was set up for them. TikTok creator @laurachristine1234 showcased a clever solution by setting up a dummy feeder to lure the bees away from her hummingbird feeder.

Bees are essential parts of our ecosystem. Without their help pollinating flowers and trees, a great many plants and animals would not survive. Just like hummingbirds, bees feed on nectar and pollen from plants. Both food sources are crucial to their survival. Although hummingbirds can live on sugar alone to fuel their rapid metabolism and bees cannot, that doesn't mean you can't feed bees artificially once in a while.

As for what to supply in your dummy feeder, some people might want to use honey to attract bees to their gardens, but honey can easily be contaminated and hurt the bee population. The same goes for brown sugar and molasses, which are toxic to bees because they contain impurities. A syrup made of refined white sugar and water will do just fine.

In order to make local bees change their minds about crashing your hummingbird feeder, offer up a suitable incentive for them to keep away. Your dummy feeder should attract bees more than the hummingbird one. A lot of feeders are red because hummingbirds are naturally attracted to that color. However, bees don't have red receptors, so they can't see red the way that we do. They see color combinations based on ultraviolet light, blue, and green, and they are most attracted to purple, blue, and violet. To help draw them away from the red hummingbird feeder, @laurachristine1234 recommends purchasing a yellow or orange feeder strictly for bees. 

Add different levels of sugar water to each feeder to attract the right critters. While you don't want to overfeed bees with too high of a sugar-to-water ratio, which would be detrimental to their health, you should dilute the hummingbird's sugar water, since bees will choose the sweetest option available. It also helps to isolate the dummy to keep bees away from the hummingbird feeder. 

Don't wait to see bees in your hummingbird feeder before implementing this plan, either. Keep in mind that this method works best during periods when the flowers aren't blooming and bees have a hard time sourcing enough nectar for themselves, driving them into your garden by hunger. If you already have your dummy feeder set up and ready for use, it'll make a considerable difference for the hungry bees and in keeping your hummingbird feeder clear of bees.