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Nectar secretion by flowers is influenced by many environmental factors e.g. water supply and air temperature [1].

My question is: do bees (or any other pollinator) influence it too?

I can imagine every bee's visit takes away a certain amount of nectar from the flower. Then following the flower nature, it should produce nectar again (if there are the right conditions, e.g. enough water).

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2468960

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In short, yes, it seems many flower species have mechanisms to replenish nectar after removal. For example, in Luo et al. 2014 Journal of Pollination Ecology, 9 of 11 species of plants they studied in the Colorado Rockies showed significant additional nectar production after some nectar was experimentally removed. Furthermore, the magnitude of this behavior was greater for flowers known to be heavily visited by bees:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268523373_Stimulation_of_flower_nectar_replenishment_by_removal_A_survey_of_eleven_animal-pollinated_plant_species

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  • $\begingroup$ Hi Michael. Please provide some summary or other form of support from the source you provide. Simply adding a link without an explanation or summary is not acceptable on this stack site. If the link goes dead, this post literally becomes useless. Please update accordingly to avoid having it downvoted or deleted. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – theforestecologist ♦
    Feb 10, 2019 at 20:37

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