NEWS: As part of the BMU summer trip, Svenja Schulze also presented the BienABest app on 28 June 2021.

In light of the fact that around half of the almost 600 wild bee species in Germany are already extinct or endangered, the "BienABest" project was presented, which has developed an app as part of funding from the Federal Biological Diversity Programme that also enables laypeople to distinguish between wild bees. In a first step, around 100 wild bee species that are widespread throughout Germany were entered into a database. In further stages, the data is to be expanded to 200 and later even 300 species, some of which are highly localised.

The free app enables laypeople to categorise the species into eight groups based on body features such as body shape. In subgroup 5 (body shape medium, abdomen partially hairy), further distinguishing features regarding the colouring of the abdomen are offered for classification due to the large number of possible species.

The app also helps to classify the wild bees into main groups using multi-level search filters with characteristics such as body shape and size, wing design or hairiness and colouring of the abdomen. The more characteristics can be assigned to the bee found, the shorter the list of hits displayed.

There is a profile for each bee, which contains photos of the head and body of the more common female bee, its scientific name and detailed descriptions of the animals, often including the males. The profile also contains information on the way of life and nesting, any host bees, favoured flowers, flight times and the general and Germany-wide distribution of the species. Possible confusions with other bee species and distinguishing features are also listed.

The app can also be used to report where the respective species has been found. In this way, everyone can make a small contribution to environmental protection.

Incidentally, the Mull und Partner Group also makes a major contribution to the conservation and protection of Nature and environment.

You can find information about the app here: Wild bees Id BienABest (bmu.de)

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