If we die, we're taking you with us.

[caraher]

14. Probably not an Einstein quote

Apparently the version of this apocryphal quote with the 4-year deadline first appeared in a beekeepers' magazine in 1965. Snopes says the veracity is undetermined.

While I think we have to stop all the things we're doing that kill off bees, the human extinction claim is overblown:

Let us remember that there were no honey bees in this continent a few hundred years ago. Native Americans ate a healthy diet which included squash and beans, sunflower seeds, chestnuts and a variety of berries, all of them pollinated by native bees. More recently, small farms and vegetable gardens still could obtain enough pollination services without managed bee hives.

Present day farming or agribusiness, with its enormous monoculture fields, requires managed pollinators: hives with large numbers of workers that can be trucked long distances and moved from crop to crop as the seasons progress.

If all honey bees disappeared, it would be catastrophic for agriculture, as we know it, and we would certainly suffer grievously, but we would survive. Nevertheless, over time, other pollinators could, and would, take over all the tasks that the Jack-of-all-trades performs today. This would require profound changes in agriculture to meet these pollinators’ needs such as nesting habitat, diversity of crops, protection from pesticides and more. Fortunately, several groups of pollination experts are already exploring this issue and coming with alternatives.

I find that view excessively pollyannaish; losing honey bees would be a catastrophe. But the effect would fall well short of killing off all people.