How Overripe Bananas Can Help You Attract More Hummingbirds To Your Garden

Hummingbirds are a welcome little guest of honor to any yard or garden, but sometimes, the sweet stuff that comes in the feeder just doesn't do the trick. You may already know how to use overripe bananas to attract butterflies (and if you don't, now you do!), but did you know that you can use these very same bananas to attract hummingbirds? Simply peel your overripe bananas and leave small pieces around the feeding openings of your hummingbird feeder. It works similarly to when you chop up these classic fruit peels to attract hummingbirds to your yard, and perhaps surprisingly, it isn't because of the sugar in the fruits.

Rather, it's because hummingbirds eat insects, and these overripe, sickly-sweet fruits will attract plenty of those. Hummingbirds burn an enormous number of calories (between 6,000 and 12,000 per day), so you can bet they need some serious re-fueling throughout. A hummingbird can actually eat several hundred to a thousand insects in a day on average, so a bug buffet is exactly what they love to see when they pull up for a little nectar. Since hummingbirds swallow insects whole due to the size of their bills, fruit is a great bug-attracting choice since fruit flies will go bonkers for it. These little birds also dine on small spiders, aphids, mosquitoes, beetles, caterpillars, and more, so they make for efficient pest control at the same time.

Of course, you don't want your wealth of overripe bananas to cause a whole flood of insects into your garden, either. To keep the balance between hummingbirds and tiny pets, it's important for you to clean your hummingbird feeder regularly; this is true even when you aren't adding mushy banana adornments to it. 

To clean your hummingbird feeder, you don't need crazy cleaners or even detergent, since chemical residue could harm the birds. Hot water with a touch of vinegar or hydrogen peroxide will do the trick just fine. Clean your feeder once every day or every other day in hot weather, once per three days in moderate weather, and twice a week when it's cold. If you notice mold in the feeder, or note that any sick bird has used it, clean it after that, too, to prevent other, healthy birds from falling ill as well.

What do you do about all the extra bananas in between feedings? You can keep ripe bananas for longer with this storage tip and use them to make baked goods, saving only small portions for the feeder. When you dispose of the bananas, add them to compost, but be careful not to add too much, or you risk a fruit fly infestation that not even your fine-feathered friends are guaranteed to help you combat.