The good folks on the Snopes message boards claim to have traced the Einstein bees quote back to a pamphlet that the Union Nationale de l’Apiculture Française wrote a decade ago. Snopester Bonnie cites articles that appeared in The Scotsman in 1994.
I searched The Scotsman’s online archive but articles from 1994 do not appear to be present. I have also searched online archives of American newspapers (some dating back 50 years) and found no mention of the quote. The oldest appearance on the Internet I’ve found of the quote is on a mailing list archived by Ibiblio.
The next stop is to research old issues of The Scotsman and see if they lead anywhere. I’m guessing my local library will not have any archives of a Scottish newspaper, though, so that puts me at a bit of a disadvantage.
Its, uh, hive time we track down this quote!
You go, Mark! I’m pollen for ya!
There is no greater friend to the bee than Mark Turner!!!
Matt