this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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always wondered of the nutritional value of these, left out by people with good intentions, but probably doing more harm than good with those empty calories
My understanding is sugar water is fine for hummingbirds, but the red dye often added to it is not.
You are correct. If you feed hummingbirds, dissolve a 1:4 ratio of sugar to water in summer (so 1 cup sugar to four cups water) or a 1:3 ratio in winter for extra calories/energy. Don't use the bottled red stuff, it's bad for them :)
Hummingbirds need all the calories they can get. Their calorie requirements per mass are somewhere in the realm of 50x greater than a human's.
i am aware, but sugar water in 100% calories and no protein, essential fats, vitamins or minerals, whatsoever
They get those from little bugs they catch in flight, as well as nectar and pollen from whatever flowers they can find blooming. That's why you should also have some native blooming plants if possible. The feeder should never be their only source of food, but like it says about nectar in this article about bees, it can provide the extra energy to get to the next nutritious food source.
https://baynature.org/article/whats-the-secret-of-nectar/#:~:text=Generally%2C%20nectar%20is%20composed%20mostly,plant%20absorbs%20the%20unused%20nectar.
Adding anything more nutritious to the sugar water than plain white cane sugar would make it an excellent food for harmful bacteria and other microbes.
Biology is different for lots of different creatures. Just because we need certain things in our diet doesn't mean birds need those same things in the same quantities from the same sources. We are, after all, quite different from birds.