The world’s tiniest Mcdonald’s franchise has opened its doors to its customers and it has created quite a buzz online. It doesn’t serve you fries and Mcflurry, though. It’s a Mcdonald’s made especially for bees. Yes, you read it right, a beehive in the form of a McDonald’s restaurant. And it doesn’t just look like it, it is an incredibly detailed mini McDonald’s complete with patios, an outdoor seating area, a drive-thru, posters of their menu plastered in wood panel windows and a golden yellow McDonald’s sign on top. A quick peek into McHive and you will see bees in hive frames full of honeycomb.
McHive is a collaboration between McDonald’s and NORD DDB, a creative agency in Sweden, to celebrate the efforts of McDonald’s branches in Sweden who have made a move to help save bees.
Earth Day Network’s list of endangered species includes Bees. According to their website, the population of bees has drastically decreased worldwide. Many species are dependent on bees to survive and bees are also needed for plants to pollinate which makes them a major player in the ecosystem. In the absence of bees, crops and other food sources will not survive. Experts foresee it to be disastrous for all living things, and their lives are being threatened because of insecticides, neonicotinoids and GMOs as well as the loss of habitat and climate change.
McDonald’s franchises have chipped in their efforts to save bees by setting up beehives in their roofs. They also have tried to landscape their surroundings to make it more bee-friendly. According to NORD DDB more McDonald’s franchises in Sweden have joined in in the cause and have replaced the grass with flowers and plants. Unveiling McHive is also an effort to make others more aware of the threat bees are facing, and perhaps inspire bigger companies and organizations to follow suit.
Scroll down for photos of McHive below and a video showing what it looks like inside.