McDonald's creates billboards with tiny 'bee hotels'

McDonald’s recently caused quite a buzz with its tiny restaurant replicas aimed at saving the bees.

Clearly determined to the cause, the fast-food chain has come up with another brilliant way to attract and save those fuzzy yellow creatures.

Now McDonald’s is branching out to the hospitality industry, creating tiny hotels with bees as their only guests.

Billboards can be seen across Sweden boasting six different hotel rooms that double as bee enclosures to support biodiversity.

The folks dedicated to bee architecture are Swedish firm NORD DDB who joined forces with advertising agency JCDecaux to put the thing together.

NORD DDB explained the importance of cultivating space for bees, saying that 30% of wild bees in the country are threatened, mainly because they do not have enough resting areas.

Initiatives to save bees are important for our environment as without bee colonies, there would be major rippling effects throughout ecosystems.

NORD DDB told DesignTAXI that without pollination from the bee population, food available to humans would drop by a third.

Swedish residents or those travelling through can spot the bee hotels in Järfälla outside Stockholm, where the billboards have been set up.

Each tiny ‘establishment’ is on north-facing billboards as bees are most comfortable when their nests are directed north.

If the initiatives are successful then NORD DDB and JCDecaux will expand their ‘hotel’ chains in 2020.

A crying shame if they don’t call it AirbeeNbee.

While the hotels are dotted around the city, the bee restaurant, McHive, was auctioned at a charity fundraiser for Ronald McDonald house charities.

Designed and built by award-winning set designer Nicklas Nilsson, the McHive was sold to a franchisee for over $10,000 (£7,885).

Christoffer Rönnblad, marketing director, McDonald’s Sweden said: ‘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.’

The economic value of bees’ pollination work has been estimated around €265 (£236) billion so we all need to be a friend to the bees.

Let’s hope other large establishments also become committed to the cause.

Source: Read Full Article