Bee colonies around the world are vanishing from the Earth at shocking rates. It’s happening the fastest in the United States, where experts believe that 44% of colonies were lost in just 2016. There are a number of reasons for this vanishing of the bee population, but a lot of it has to do with the impact of humans on the environment.
Things such as diesel fumes and pesticides have slowly withered away the bee population, and if something isn’t done soon we may be in big trouble as we lose our neighborhood bees. This is because bees are responsible for pollinating a staggering amount of plants that we rely on every day for food, energy, and more. Without bees, this could present a big problem.
After hearing of this, McDonald’s decided to try to make a difference by hosting beehives on the roofs of their restaurants. Some restaurants are also putting flowers outside of the restaurants too, creating a bee-friendly environment that has helped to increase the bee population in the Scandinavian country. Pretty amazing!
To celebrate this achievement, Mcdonald’s signed on a professional carpenter to create the ‘smallest ever Mcdonald’s,” which is a fully operational beehive which has a McDonald’s sign, drive-through, an outside seating area and even tiny ads on the windows outside.
With almost 40,000 locations around the globe, the Swedish effort could prove to be very effective and could alter the future of the bee population worldwide.
“We have a lot of really devoted franchisees who contribute to our sustainability work, and it feels good that we can use our size to amplify such a great idea as beehives on the rooftops,” said Christoffer Rönnblad, marketing director of McDonald’s Sweden, in an interview with Adweek.
The EU has recently passed a law which creates a total ban on the outdoor use of neonicotinoids, which is a pesticide believed to be extremely harmful to bees.