Question 1146718
you would probably want to make a table as shown below.


before doing that, translate everything to milligrams.


10 grams = 10,000 milligrams
8 grams = 8,000 milligrams.


you could also have converted everything to grams.
either way should get you the same answer.


let x = the number of honeysuckle flowers.
let y = the number of nasturtium flowers.


your table would look like this:


<pre>
                     honeysuckle flowers      nasturtium flowers      total
number of            x                         y  
mg of sugar          20                       10                      10,000
mg of protein        10                       10                      8,000
</pre>


your equations would be:


20 * x + 10 * y = 10,000
10 * x + 10 * y = 8,000


subtract the second equation from the first to get:
10 * x = 2,000
solve for x to get:
x = 200


replace x with that in the first equation and solve for y to get:
20 * 200 + 10 * y = 10,000
simplify to get:
4,000 + 10 * y = 10,000
subtract 4,000 from both sides to get:
10 * y = 6,000
solve for y to get:
y = 600


you have:
x = 200
y = 600


replace x and y with that in both original equations to get:


20 * x + 10 * y = 10,000 becomes 20 * 200 + 10 * 600 = 10,000 which becomes 4000 + 6000 = 10,000 which becomes 10,000 = 10,000 which is true.


10 * x + 10 * y = 8,000 becomes 10 * 200 + 10 * 600 = 8,000 which becomes 2000 + 6000 = 8,000 which becomes 8,000 = 8,000 which is true.


the number of each type of flower looks good.


it takes 5 seconds to feed from each flower.
(200 + 600) * 5 = 800 * 5 = 4000 seconds.
4000 seconds / 60 seconds per minute =  66 and 2/3 minutes.
that's how long it takes the hummingbird to get exactly the amount of sugar and protein that it needs.