Here is an article that appeared some months ago in Dorset BKA's magazine
'Honeycraft'.
Chris
Albert Einstein said…..
“If the bees disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would have
only 4 years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more
plants, no more animals, no more man”
Which Albert Einstein was that? It certainly wasn’t the famous
theoretical physicist who devised his theory of relativity through what he described
as a ‘thought experiment’. He died in 1955 but the apocryphal saying
first was mentioned in January 1994 when the Union Nationale d’Apiculture
Francais (French Bee Farmers) were staging a protest at Brussels.
Bee that as it may, let’s follow the great Albert’s example and devise a
thought experiment. Imagine, if you will, a world where there are no
honeybees or other Apis species. What shall we call it? How about ‘America’?
a) Could pollination happen in America if there were no bees? b) Would the
twin continents be devoid of plants, animals and man? c) How else would
pollination happen? d) What plants could survive without bees aiding their
sex lives? e) What animals would there be and, of course: f) How could man
exist in these circumstances?
Answers: a) Yes; b) no; c) humming birds, butterflies, wind, other
insects, self-pollination, tuberous reproduction; d) potatoes, maize, tobacco,
tomatoes, Brazil nuts, vines, conifer forests, prairie grasslands, to name but
a few e) buffalo by the million, sloth, cougar, bear of all sorts, fish,
birds of all sorts, wolves, monkeys, caribou and countless others f) Eskimos
even today live largely in a bee-free environment and always have done.
Other humans have done so too, spreading south after having crossed the
land/ice bridge from Siberia thousands of years ago. It is true that the recent
(last 500 years) past migrants have put pressure on the environment,
probably more so in the most recent 10% of that time than the remainder added
together through use of agri-chemicals and other pollutants, but even so it
is self evident that mankind can exist there, possibly with the assistance
of the honeybees that they introduced. Now, whether civilisation will ever
evolve there is an entirely different question.
So the alleged Einstein statement is completely ridiculous and poppycock!
Chris Slade.
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