Originally published 2016-10-23.
Morgan Freeman is not just an actor who worries about bees; he keeps them. In 2014 he turned his 124-acre ranch near Charleston, Mississippi, into a honeybee sanctuary, and in a later interview on Larry King Now he was asked who was to blame for the loss of bee colonies. When King offered two options, Monsanto for making the weedkiller Roundup or the government for lax pesticide rules, Freeman's answer was "Both."
The clip spread widely online, often with bold claims attached. This article looks at what Freeman actually said, what he has done on his ranch, and what researchers have found about why bees are struggling, including where the popular story is right and where it goes too far.
What Freeman said on Larry King Now
In the interview, Freeman described a frightening loss of bee colonies, particularly in the United States, to the point that scientists were calling it dangerous. He compared bees to the canaries that miners once carried underground: small birds that showed distress or died when toxic gases built up, warning the men to get out. His point was that the health of a sensitive species can be an early signal about the health of the wider environment, and that the loss of one species ripples outward to others.
You can watch the conversation here:
Inside Freeman's Mississippi bee sanctuary
According to local reporting by WECT, Freeman brought in 26 hives from Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and planted bee-friendly magnolia trees and lavender on the property. He talked about his new hobby on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2014, and he reportedly tends and feeds the bees without wearing a protective suit, something experienced beekeepers would not recommend for beginners.
The ranch is a small contribution in national terms, but it illustrates something practical: bees need forage. Converting land to flowering plants that bloom across the season is one of the most direct ways a landowner can help.
Why bees matter for food
Honeybees and wild bees move pollen between flowers, which many fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds need to set a good crop. The figure often repeated, and cited in the original version of this story, comes from a 2010 UN Environment Programme report: of the roughly 100 crop species that provide most of the world's food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees.
That does not mean humanity would starve without bees. The staple grains that supply most calories, such as wheat, rice and maize, are wind-pollinated. What would suffer is variety and nutrition: researchers estimate that a large share of dietary vitamin A and other micronutrients comes from animal-pollinated crops such as fruits and vegetables. Losing pollinators would make diets poorer and food more expensive rather than causing an immediate famine.
Colony collapse disorder and what causes it
The phrase "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) was coined in 2006–2007, after US beekeepers reported hives in which most adult worker bees had simply vanished, leaving behind the queen, the brood and stores of honey, with few dead bees nearby. Since then, scientists have searched for a single culprit and not found one.
The broad conclusion of a 2010 USDA steering committee and a 2015 review of 170 studies is that several stresses act together:
- Varroa mites and the viruses they spread, widely seen as the biggest threat to managed honeybees.
- Pathogens such as the fungus-like parasite Nosema ceranae.
- Pesticides, especially neonicotinoid insecticides, which the European Union restricted on bee-attractive crops in 2013 and later banned for outdoor use.
- Poor nutrition from monoculture farming and the loss of wildflowers.
- Stress from management, including trucking hives long distances to pollinate crops.
A 2013 study by USDA and University of Maryland scientists, published in PLOS ONE, found that pollen collected by bees working crops contained on average nine different pesticides and fungicides, and that bees fed pollen containing fungicides were more likely to become infected by Nosema. It was one of the first studies to show that chemicals not designed to kill insects could still weaken bees.
Is Monsanto's Roundup to blame?
This is where the viral version of the story needs correcting. Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate, is a herbicide: it kills plants by blocking an enzyme pathway that animals do not have. It is not designed to harm insects, and it is not the main driver of bee losses.
That said, research has raised real questions. In 2018 Erick Motta and Nancy Moran at the University of Texas at Austin reported in PNAS that honeybees exposed to glyphosate at levels found in the environment lost some of their beneficial gut bacteria and became more vulnerable to infection. Motta himself stressed that glyphosate is only one possible factor among many. Herbicides also contribute indirectly by removing the weeds and wildflowers that bees feed on.
The older claim that Bt, the insect-killing protein built into some genetically modified corn and cotton, destroys bees' stomachs does not hold up well. A 2008 meta-analysis of 25 studies found that Bt proteins used in commercial crops did not reduce the survival of honeybee larvae or adults, and there is no geographic link between areas growing GM crops and colony collapse. Monsanto, now part of Bayer, has faced many lawsuits over Roundup, but those cases mainly concern alleged cancer risks to people, not bees.
The Einstein bee quote is not Einstein's
Many shares of the Freeman video end with a line credited to Albert Einstein, claiming that if bees disappeared, humans would have only four years left to live. There is no evidence Einstein said it. Quote Investigator traced the first link between Einstein and bees to a 1941 column in the Canadian Bee Journal, and the four-year version first appeared in French publications in 1965, a decade after Einstein's death. Alice Calaprice's The Ultimate Quotable Einstein lists it under "Probably Not by Einstein".
How bees are doing now, and how to help
The picture is mixed. Managed honeybee numbers worldwide have actually risen, because beekeepers replace lost colonies by splitting healthy hives; the US colony count reached a record of about 3.8 million in 2022. But the cost is high: US beekeepers lost around 48% of their colonies in the year to April 2023, and replacing them takes money and work. Wild bees, which cannot be restocked, are a bigger worry, with studies showing a fall in the number of species recorded since the 1990s.
Ordinary people can help in modest but real ways:
- Plant a mix of flowers, shrubs and trees that bloom from spring to autumn.
- Leave some lawn unmown and allow clover and dandelions to flower.
- Avoid spraying insecticides or herbicides on plants in bloom, and follow label directions.
- Buy honey from local beekeepers, who manage colonies and fight Varroa every season.
- Leave bare soil and old stems in a corner of the garden, where many wild bees nest.
Freeman's celebrity gave the issue a wider audience. The science behind it is less dramatic than the viral captions suggested, but no less important: bees face many pressures at once, and reducing several of them together is what makes the difference.
Sources: WECT, Morgan Freeman converts his Mississippi ranch into honeybee sanctuary (25 March 2019); Wikipedia, Colony collapse disorder; Wikipedia, Pollinator decline; Sci.News, Glyphosate alters bee gut microbiota (26 September 2018); Quote Investigator, the Einstein bees quotation (27 August 2013); original story via Collective Evolution.
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