Cleaned them and waiting for them to sanitize. I am trying sodium hydroxide drain cleaner (pure lye crystals). Did it once before (last week) and it worked really well to get the gunk out of the bottles. The bottles are great - hold 32 ounces of nectar - but their neck is small and that makes them hard to clean. Using a chemical helps a lot. There is a fungus that can grow in the nectar (here and here) and it causes real problems with the birds if the feeders are not maintained at least once/week and kept absolutely clean.
Drain cleaner sounds a bit odd but it is working really well - there is a lot of activity in the bottles. I rinse them out, put in about a teaspoon of cleaner and fill the bottle with warm water. It proceeds to fizz slowly for a good 30 minutes - this is the NaOH "eating" up all the organic residue. When the fizzing stops, the glass is scrupulously clean. I rinse twice and then slosh some vinegar to neutralize the NaOH and then rinse again. Let dry completely and then they are ready to use. The plastic platforms, I hand wash with soap and water.
I used to use a 10% Clorox solution but that didn't really get rid of the residue, just bleached it. It was sanitary but not clean. This way, it is both.
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