little BIG hotels support the Berlin summt! initiative. Here is what the Foundation for People and the Environment does and how you can donate.
Berlin summt! started in the city in 2011. The initiative is run by the Foundation for People and the Environment (Stiftung für Mensch und Umwelt) in Berlin-Zehlendorf. The central theme is bee protection and what we can all do for it. little BIG hotels support the foundation in that work.
Why Berlin started to hum
Germany is home to around 560 wild bee species, Berlin to around 300. Many of them are struggling, and honey bees are under the same pressure. Pesticides and a lack of forage hit them in the countryside, while in the city sealed ground and closely cut greenery barely offer nectar. Parasites and disease add to that. For raising public awareness of the broader theme of biological diversity, the bee was the perfect figure of sympathy, an insect with a good image that links flora and fauna.
In 2010 Dr Corinna Hölzer read about Jean Paucton, the stage builder at the Opéra Garnier in Paris. In 1982 he put a hive on the opera roof, meant only as a stopgap. The bees stayed. Hölzer brought the thought to Berlin. Prominent roofs were meant to win attention for bees, for the die-off and for pollinators that often stay invisible.
Together with Cornelis Hemmer the idea went into ÜBER LEBENSKUNST, a competition by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Out of hundreds of entries came start-up funding. In 2011 hives stood on roofs such as Berlin Cathedral, the Abgeordnetenhaus and the House of World Cultures. The honey bee brought the attention, while the concern was for the wild bees. From that Berlin idea later grew the nationwide network Deutschland summt!.
What the foundation does
The foundation is based in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Hölzer and Hemmer founded it in 2010. It informs, plans near-natural spaces and brings municipalities, schools, housing cooperatives and companies along.
In Berlin housing estates you find stepping-stone habitats, often only 20 to 40 square metres at the front door. Larger are the PikoParks, around 300 square metres with perennials, dry-stone walls, deadwood and benches. In the Treffpunkt Vielfalt project the foundation reworked leftover lawn in several neighbourhoods. Faunal studies later showed more life on those plots. There are also raised beds at schools, the wild-bee show garden in Schöneweide and the bee case for education work.
Since 2016 there has also been the Deutschland summt! planting competition. Families, nurseries, schools, clubs and municipalities take part, from a balcony to a public plot. In 2026, 286 entries came in. Around 4,000 people shaped about 17 hectares of near-natural ground.
© Stiftung für Mensch und Umwelt
You can donate yourself
If Berlin’s bees and urban nature matter to you, you can support the foundation directly. On the Berlin summt! donation page that works via a form or a bank transfer. You will find the same work via the general donation page of the Foundation for People and the Environment. That keeps the team going, pays for the information work and for planning new sites.
If you want to plant yourself, the competition is a good place to look. And if you want to read what we do day to day, do visit our environment page. Also worth a look is our cooperation with Too Good To Go.