Re: Should butterflies and bees be fed sugar water to be observed by tourists?

This is a good question with no simple, straight forward answer. Basically what you want to know is if artificial feeding will keep insects and birds from visiting flowers. On one hand, it must be true that by feeding at human feeders, animals do not need to forage at flowers, so it sounds like the answer maybe that feeders is detrimental to pollination.

However, feeders may increase the local populations of pollinating animals so that more of them are around, more consistently, in which case the greater numbers of pollinators will accomplish more pollinations. This can vary depending upon the pollinator. Generally I have not found any reports that feeders have a negative impact on pollination.