Agricultural productivity, particularly in the tropics, is at least partially dependent upon natural ecosystem services such as pollination, pest control, and water and soil conservation. While empirical studies have shown that the productivity of coffee is enhanced by insect pollination, rarely have management practices been included in such analyses. This omission means that the value of pollination services cannot be set within the range of management interventions available to farmers. Without this broader context, it is difficult to evaluate how farmers might respond to calls for managing land to secure pollination services. In Kodagu, a major coffee-growing region in southern India, we investigated the contribution that bee pollination makes to coffee production in the context of fertilization, irrigation and shade management practices as well as environmental variables. We monitored coffee production on 10 coffee bushes from flowering to harvest in 123 sites located at least 1 km from one another. In each of these sites, bee observations were carried out when coffee flowered. Data on shade level and shade tree density were collected through field surveys, and management practices recorded through interviews with planters. Our results show that even taking into account management decisions, bee abundance contributes more to coffee production in terms of number of berries harvested than other management practices, such as NPK fertilisation. Bee abundance, however, is highly contingent upon management actions, particularly irrigation, rather than the nature of the surrounding habitat matrix. Indeed, bee abundance at any one site was mainly driven by irrigation, which triggered asynchronous flowering and concentrated bee foraging. Raising awareness among coffee growers of the role of asynchronously irrigating can potentially contribute to improve quantitatively and qualitatively coffee production.