Why will the extinction of bees cause all other life to go extinct too?

Question

I've heard that if bees go completely extinct, humans and other animals will have only four years left to live. Why is that?

Answer 1

It was reportedly Albert Einstein who said this. And though he was a smart guy, he was no biologist.

Yes... a lot of plants rely on bees for pollination. Many growers of crops even hire beekeepers to come and make sure their plants are fertilized in this way. And undoubtedly there would be massive collapse in some regions that are heavily dependant on these crops if all the bees became extinct. (link 1)

Still, estimates suggest that only one third of currently produced food is bee-reliant. Which suggests that two-thirds are not. Humans are pretty versatile folk... if we lost one kind of food, we'd just make more of the other kinds. Even in the worst possible scenario, we'd probably be eating goats which can live off weeds. Our extinction is simply not on the table.

And even the total loss of bees would probably not completely eliminate those foods that are bee-pollinated now. Plants can be as versatile as humans. Even if some of them rely predominantly on bees, it hardly means they have no other ways of getting the job done. I'm sure most will eventually adjust one way or the other.

Humans are also inveterate meddlers. I'm sure if we can alter the crops to our advantage, we will. But crops which require less meddling are usually more profitable than ones which require more. So it goes.

Answer 2

Some of the other answers you are getting are way too optimistic. We can't do the job bees are doing in pollinating our food some other "easy" way. If we lose one-third of our food, we are in for desparate times. Even many of the weeds goats eat depend on seeds pollinated by bees, so we can't just quit eating apples and live on goats instead.

ALL fruits would disappear and that is no small thing.

Currently, there are two serious problems for bees. One is mites that are spreading through the bee population and killing millions of them. Secondly, for some unknown reason, bees are leaving their hives and simply disappearing. There is some speculation that the second is related to the first in that the treatment to kill the mites may be damaging the bees homing instinct and once they leave their hives they cannot find their way back and thus seem to just disappear.

Answer 3

i think that's a little extreme but if bees go extinct( which isn't likely to happen any time soon) the food production would greatly decrease. bees pollinate most of the fruits and vegetables naturally so this could have an affect on the amount of food produced. but if worse came to worse we could just pollinate the foods ourselves in a controlled environment.

Answer 4

This is what really scares the crap out of me. Hardly anyone realizes the true danger caused by cell phones and microwave towers sending phone messages are causing bees to die out, and this will affect our food supply because almost all plants depend on pollination to produce new plants from year to year. All life depends on plants as either their direct source of food, or we eat animals that do eat the grass and grain. So plants die, then cows, sheep, chickens, etc. run out of pasture and grain, die, then WE starve. Bad news I'm afraid, and the worst part is, ALMOST NOBODY knows, or seems to care. :-(