Hand Blown Glass Hummingbird Feeder

[LovelyLadyLux]

I'll openly admit right now I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack..........

Now that I've gotten that out of the way ........

I have a round hand blown glass hummingbird feeder. Has a glass loop on top so you can hang it.

It is round and has a hole in the bottom (1" diameter) where you put in a stopper with a bend glass tube. The glass tube has a small red plastic cap on it. The cap has a tiny hole in the middle that the hummingbird can stick its beak into and suck out the nectar...........except.........I filled the blown glass bubble with nectar, put the stopper in it and NOW the nectar doesn't run down the tube!!

I actually sucked on it and got a mouthful of nectar (YUCK) so nothing is stopped up except the nectar is not flowing down the tube?

I emptied out a bit of nectar from the blown glass container but that didn't help either.

What am I doing wrong? Why is the nectar not running down the tube?

Sooooooooo simple yet beyond me.......

[Horus]

Can you post a picture of it so we can see how it looks? it may then be easier to figure out what's wrong.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Yes will do ........

[LovelyLadyLux]

Ok - here are the photos from furthest away to up close PLUS the second one that is sitting on the kitchen counter in 2 pieces cause I'm operating on "fool me once - my mistake" - "fool me twice and now I can confirm I'm really stupid!" (Again think dim bulb!)











I'd of figured that liquid being wet and in this case sticky too would flow south but ??? Apparently not - yet the book said it was SO EASY anybody could figure it out.

You can see the air lock of nectar that is stuck in the tube........(and I won't add about sucking on it again either )

[Horus]

It is definitely an air lock problem, maybe caused by the liquid being a bit on the syrupy side. You could try diluting it a bit more, or after hanging it up in position instead of sucking on it you poke something small into the end and keep agitating it until the bubble has gone, but I reckon your problem is the size of the tube relative to the viscosity of the liquid in the top. It is so viscous that it cannot flow freely and creates a small vacuum in the small tube as you take liquid out from the open end, in other words you are seeing a vacuum and not an air pocket. One way to prove it would be to fill it with plain water and see if the same thing happens, that should prove the problem if it then works or runs straight through.

[Grandad]

I agree with Horus about trying it with water but just for the hell of it, try blowing up the pipe to push the airlock up into the top airspace. I also wonder if you actually need the red plastic cap. Take it off to try. The nectar should not run out as the vacuum above the fluid will hold it. (But try that outside, not over a nice new carpet

[LovelyLadyLux]

Hmmm - been out all day so haven't had further chance to play with it. Instruction on the bent tube/stopper thing is to leave a bit of air inside the glass ball (which I did).

Water runs through it no problem.

This is also nectar. Water brought to boil, sugar added and stirred but immediately cooled so it does NOT form a syrup. Hummingbirds will not eat it if it is syrupy so this nectar is not thick. Quite runny.

I've wiggled it, giggled it, thought about doing everything I can to get the air lock out.

The red end needs to stay on as it is the red that attracts the hummingbird to it via a small hole.

More in a bit - busy one today and I'm back out shortly.

[Horus]

I still think its a flow problem, how much air space is there above the liquid?

[LovelyLadyLux]

I left about an inch at the top of the bulb so as to have a bit of air. Not ignoring this but was super busy yesterday and have another app't out this morning (acupuncture ) plus a walk so once I'm back later today I'm going to disassemble and trying starting again. I have 4 'ends' so am going to try another one just in case the stopper & tube of this one are flawed (but I don't think that is the problem)

[LovelyLadyLux]

After supper I brought the blown glass hummingbird feeder in and took it apart.

I emptied the nectar into the other one BUT I couldn't even force the stopped into it. (Again a few choice mutterings)

Then I nearly dropped the round green one into the sink. I slopped out nectar so it was only half full. The GOOD news about that is that it did fill the tube and the airlocks disappeared.

Good in the sense that it now works, bad in the sense that it only holds about half a cup of nectar which means filling it up often.

Alls well that ends well and I can live with this feeder being more decorative than anything else. I still have the two big feeders that hold 2 cups of nectar out there. The hummers are emptying the big feeders every few days.