ABSTRACT
Traditional accounts of competition have focused either on the ways in which consumer species partition an array of available resources, or on the role of overt interference by which dominant species are able to exclude competitors from the most productive food species or habitats. Consumer species can then be viewed as operators that map production into standing crop. Standing crops were measured by draining flowers to which the bees had access. Approximately 400 flower stalks of Agave schottii were tagged and measured as to the number of flowers in bloom. Agave schottii produces approximately 90% of its nectar at night. Ants were excluded first from 10 of the flower stalks, and later from all of the stalks on and surrounding the site. However, when all stalks were treated with Tanglefoot, Apis continued to increase, but Bombus activity declined back to the control level.
