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At 5:13 AM -0700 4/17/10, Gayle MacLean wrote:
>My friend in East Chezzetcook who always has lots of hummingbirds
>visiting every year said that she always has put a drop of
>grapefruit seed extract into each batch of hummingbird sugar water
>that she makes. She states it is a natural preservative, an
>anti-bacterial and is anti-fungal. She also says that it allows it
>to stay fresher longer. She also puts some in the water of her
>African Grey Parrot too, to keep the 'nasty's' away. Anyway, she has
>been doing this for years and says she hasn't lost a hummer yet.
>I've never read anywhere where this additive is suggested.
>Has anyone ever heard of this or does anyone else suggest this?
It's likely that this works, Gayle, by lowering the pH of the sugar
water, likely by adding acetic acid in this case, from the seed
extract. Not knowing the constitution of the extract, I can't be
definitive but I used to do something similar for artificial nectar
for rearing butterflies for research and also used a similar recipe
to preserve sugar water for hummingbird feeders while I was in the
strong sun and high heat of central Texas.
Basically, I added very small amounts of three naturally-occurring
organic acids (ascorbic, sorbic and benzoic -- ascorbic is vitamin C,
and sorbic and benzoic are from rowan (or mountain ash) berries and
the bark of snowbell or spicebush-type trees/shrubs, respectively) to
a mixture of sugar/honey, three kinds of salts and casein (basically
skim milk powder, a source of amino acids) to lower the pH of the
nectar below that which bacteria and fungi can tolerate. The acidic
pH didn't bother the butterflies at all and didn't bother the
hummingbirds when I included just the ascorbic and benzoic acids to
just sugar and water to make the sugar water last longer than a day
or two in the Texas heat.
Phil
--
Phil Schappert, PhD
27 Clovis Ave.
Halifax, NS, B3P 1J3
902-404-5679 (home)
902-460-8343 (cell)
www.myspace.com/philschappert
www.philschappert.com
www.aworldforbutterflies.com
"Just let imagination lead, reality will follow through..."
(Michael Hedges)
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