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

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

The free app enables laypersons to classify the species into eight groups on the basis of body features such as body shape. In subgroup 5 (body shape medium, abdomen partly hairy), further distinguishing features regarding the colouration of the abdomen are offered for delimitation due to the large number of possible species.

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

A fact sheet is provided for each bee, containing photos of the head and body of the more common female bee, its scientific name and detailed descriptions of the animals, often also of the males. In addition, the fact sheet contains information on the way of life and nesting, host bees if any, preferred flowers, flight times and the general and Germany-wide distribution of the species. Furthermore, possibilities of confusion with other bee species and distinguishing characteristics are listed.

With the app, it is also possible to report where the respective species has been found. In this way, everyone can make a small contribution to environmental protection.

By the way: The Mull and 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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