Introducing Pollenyzer: An app for automatic determination of colour diversity for corbicular pollen loads

Abstract

Pollen is known to be the only source of proteins and fats for honey bees. Therefore, it is an important component of nutrition, essential for brood care and a good indicator for the availability of resources in a landscape. It is also known that a diverse diet is beneficial for bee health, also in relation to winter losses. In this work, an app is presented that allows to quantify the pollen from a pollen trap and to determine its colour diversity in an automatic way. The colour diversity is closely related to the actual plant diversity. This correlation allows conclusions to be drawn on the apicultural importance of a landscape and on biodiversity in general. In this way, the app provides beekeepers with important information about the nutritional condition of their colonies, while scientists can benefit from aggregated information about local biodiversity. The app is free of use and available as a web app on all devices.