Joe wrote: I am seeking the origin OR early sources for the quote:
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."


I found the following German version:
"Wenn die Biene einmal von der Erde verschwindet, hat der Mensch nur noch vier Jahre zu leben. Keine Bienen mehr, keine Bestäubung mehr, keine Pflanzen mehr, keine Tiere mehr, kein Mensch mehr."
at http://www.zitate-online.de/sprueche/wissenschaftler/18467/wenn-die-biene-einmal-von-der-erde-verschwindet.html

The word "einmal" (verbatim "one time", meaning "one day" or "finally") is not in the English version. If I translated the English version to German I would not insert "einmal". Therefore I believe that it was translated from German to English and not vice versa.

Some discussion is in 
http://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/Diskussion:Albert_Einstein#Einstein_und_das_Aussterben_der_Bienen
and they claim that the quote was used in the  "Süddeutsche Zeitung", a major German newspaper. There is a link to the article, but it is behind a pay wall and there is probably no source for the quote.

There is another quote attributed to Yogi Berra: "I did not say half of the things I said."

Jorg
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