My daughter prompted me to make this feeder, well begged me. So, here it is! How to make a butterfly feeder from a plastic container.
I saw a project like this in a magazine, but it just wasn’t working the way they showed how to do it. Here’s my version.
How to Make a Butterfly Feeder
To make this simple science project, you’ll need a plastic container (I used the bottom of a plastic bottle), glue gun, fake flowers or colored plastic bag, a cotton ball, a pin or needle, a hole punch, and some string.
First, warm up your glue gun. Then glue the fake flowers in a circle on the bottom of your plastic container to make it look like a flower, leaving space in the middle for where the pollen of a real flower would be. If you don’t have a fake flower, you can cut a colored plastic bag into petal shapes and glue those on.
Next prick a hole in the bottom of your container in the middle of your flower petals with a pin or needle. The project that I saw in a magazine had you poke a cotton ball through the hole in the bottom. That was really difficult so, I ripped up the cotton ball and glued it around the hole, being sure to cover the hole with the cotton, but not the hot glue.
Finally, use the hole punch to cut out the sides of your container so you can tie your string on it and hang it in a tree or bush.
To make the butterfly food, you just mix 1 tsp of sugar or honey with 1/4 cup of water and put it in your butterfly feeder. The cotton ball will fill up with the sugar water and the butterflies can drink it. The solution is similar to the nectar that is in the flowers that butterflies like.
Our feeder attracted a lot of bees so far, and we did see a few small butterflies around it, but we didn’t see any drink from it yet. My daughters are constantly checking on it when the sun is out.
Would your kids like to make a feeder like this? Then they might also like this bug search experiment!
Thank you for sharing this information. It was an interesting read.
You’re welcome!