Last updated on April 4th, 2023 at 11:18 pm
Butterfly feeders are simple to make and seem like a good way to use old fruit and kitchen ingredients. But do they work? Do butterflies visit feeders?
Butterfly feeders really work because they are attracted to food, just like birds. Simply fill a pie tin or butterfly feeder with overripe fruit covered in honey, molasses, or orange juice, and place the feeder somewhere near vegetation. Butterflies will visit your feeder as if it were a flower.
Why Butterfly Feeders Work
Butterfly feeders work by providing food in areas where other food is scarce.
This is especially helpful if native plants are absent nearby, but a butterfly feeder can be a helpful addition even in a thriving garden.
Butterflies may spend several minutes exploring a feeder, so they work well enough for you to catch a glimpse of many different butterfly species.
Not all species will visit a feeder, but many will.
Butterflies That Visit Feeders
The butterflies that visit butterfly feeders include the following:
- Red Admirals
- Eyed Browns
- Viceroys
- White Admirals
- Monarchs
- Mourning Cloaks
- Red-Spotted Purples
- Painted Ladies
- Question Marks
- Commas
Are Butterfly Feeders Good for the Environment?
Butterfly feeders are good for butterflies because they provide food when food is scarce, but they aren’t so good for the environment.
However, flowers are the best food source for butterflies because the nectar contains not only sugars but the amino acids and water that they need.
Fruit may offer some of the same benefits, but flowers are ideal for butterflies.
Butterflies also transport pollen when they feed on flowers, which is critical for the ecosystem.
These feeders won’t prevent butterflies from pollinating flowers, but you’ll want to keep this added benefit of planting more flowers instead of making a feeder.
How To Make a Butterfly Feeder
To make a butterfly feeder, you can either punch holes in a pie tin and string it up to a tree or use a wooden skewer to stab through a piece of fruit and put it in a flowerpot.
Or, you can purchase a butterfly feeder online such as the Backyard Nature Products Butterfly Feeder (available on Amazon.com).
This cheery yellow feeder is dishwasher safe and has a built-in ant moat to keep bugs out of the nectar.
Another option is to simply poke a hook through half an orange and hang it on a tree branch.
This has been known to attract butterflies and any other butterfly feeder. Or, you can hang a banana outside to feed butterflies.
The following YouTube video shows you how to make a banana feeder for butterflies:
What To Put in a Butterfly Feeder
There are quite a few things you can put in a butterfly feeder, from tree sap to rotting matter and overripe fruit. The following are all good options:
- Sugar water
- Orange juice
- Overripe bananas, watermelon, or other fruit
- Yeast or stale beer
- Molasses
- Honey
There are a few tricks you can use to make these foods more appealing to butterflies.
Try placing unpeeled bananas in the freezer overnight to get the right consistency for butterflies.
Additionally, you can combine ingredients by drizzling honey, orange juice, sugar water, stale beer, or molasses on top of the overripe fruit, which is the most common method.
Tips for Maintaining a Butterfly Feeder
To maintain a butterfly feeder, you’ll need to do the following:
- Clean it regularly and empty the water when it rains.
- Ensure that you take the feeder down when a storm is coming, as these feeders can easily blow out of trees.
- Put your feeder up only during the busiest months of the year for butterflies, such as in the spring or fall, without worrying that butterflies will starve.
- Remove the fruit from the feeder each night and replace it with fresh fruit in the morning.
Other Animals That Are Attracted to Butterfly Feeders
Other animals attracted to butterfly feeders include ants and other insects, as well as some birds, like Baltimore Orioles, Cedar Waxwings, and Northern Mockingbirds.
Raccoons may also visit a hummingbird feeder, but they’re easily deterred simply by removing fruit from the feeder overnight when they are active.
Keeping Ants Out of a Butterfly Feeder
The best way to keep ants out of a butterfly feeder is to install a moat to keep them from crawling down onto the feeder.
The Hummer’s Galore Ant Moat (available on Amazon.com) effectively keeps ants out of a butterfly feeder due to its cup-like shape, provided that you fill it with water.
Check the water level in your ant moat regularly, as it’ll evaporate over time.
Another method you can use is spreading vaseline across the path ants are taking to get to the feeder.
Just be sparing with this method, as vaseline can harm animals that come into contact with it.
However, it works effectively provided that you know the ants’ path.
Supporting Butterflies With Native Plants
The best way to support butterflies is by planting native plants like trees and shrubs.
The Native Plant Finder from the National Wildlife Federation illustrates which plants are native to your area, given a zip code.
It tells you how many pollinator species each plant supports. For example, goldenrod supports about 122 species of butterflies and moths.
Benefits of Planting Native Plants
The benefits of planting native plants reach much farther than just supporting butterfly populations.
The following are all benefits of planting native plants in your garden or yard:
- Native plants remove pollutants from the air, and since they don’t require mowing, they reduce the number of pollutants you have to release into the air.
- They provide shelter for wildlife, including butterflies and birds.
- Native plants provide food for wildlife, including nectar-feeders and those who rely on nuts and berries.
- Native plants promote diverse ecosystems.
- They need little pesticide and fertilizer than the lawn.
- Native plants need less water than lawns, and they help stop erosion by increasing the capacity of the soil to store water. This also reduces the risk of flooding.