Have you ever wondered what happens to the gingerbread displays from the Walt Disney World Resort once the holiday season is over? The answer is bees!
What’s Happening:
- Walt Disney World takes the massive gingerbread displays to the Disney tree farm and lay them out in the field to give the bees a chance to collect the sugar from the wooden structures.
- It’s only natural that Disney would look to nature to help them at Walt Disney World, since as a company, Disney is committed to conservation and caring for the environment.
- With the bee populations declining around the world, Disney has made it a mission to provide pollinators with even more habitat and resources through pollinator-friendly gardens located across property.
- For the last decade Disney has surprised local bees with this sweet gift around the holidays. Now, thousands of local bees visit the displays each year to enjoy this sugary treat, which helps the declining bee population by keeping them well-fed during the winter months when food sources are harder to find.
- Once the gingerbread is removed, it’s recycled to use for compositing, leaving a wooden structure covered in royal icing made of sugar. The team then breaks down the structure piece by piece and transports it to the Walt Disney World Resort tree farm. Then, it’s all up to the bees to find the sugar-coated wooden pieces and collect the sugar.
- After the bees have left, the wooden pieces are power washed with hot water and the display is stored until they are used again for the next holiday season.
- Keeping the bees well fed helps local farmers produce honey to harvest and sell to markets or even contribute to honey blends that are sold wholesale to large companies to use in delicious culinary creations, including, you guessed it, gingerbread.
What They’re Saying:
- Barry Stockwell, Planned Work Specialist with Event Decorating Support:
- “Ten years ago, when performing our annual gingerbread display cleaning, we noticed bees were very attracted to the sugar on the displays after deconstruction,”
- “We decided to bring the display pieces to our Disney tree farm and lay them out in our field to give the bees a chance to collect the sugar on the wooden structures.”
- Zak Gezon, Conservation Manager for Disney’s Animals, Science and Environment:
- “Honey bees can typically travel up to about two miles to search for nectar and pollen, and in this case sugar.”
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