A team of experts from the Institute of Plants and Environmental Sciences of the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra with project partners PL, CZ, UA, MD and RS will ensure the development of a database of morphological characteristics of pollen for the determination of the botanical and geographical origin of pollen in honey and other bee products. The application of the open science system with the participation of beekeepers will also be used in the development of the database.

Specific objectives

To meet the objectives of the Project, the following will be ensured:

• the creation of a team of botanists, palynologists and scanning microscope experts;
• careful collection of pollen from plant populations (150 species) by botanists in full vegetation and its preparation for microscopic analysis (one species of 50-100 flowers);
• microscopic analysis of pollen grain morphology (one species of 100 photographs);
• morphometric and statistical analysis of pollen (one type 200 measurements);
• the morphological characteristics of pollen for each plant species according to internationally agreed classifiers;
• sorting and selection of photo documentation for database processing;
• the development of an electronic environment for the establishment of a library;
• processing data into a database in the pollen grain library;
• the collection of bee pollen by beekeepers from different plant species, countries and regions;
• morphometric and statistical analysis of bee pollen pods;
• officially opening e-database to the morphological characteristics of pollen;
• reviewing the activity of the created database - opening each folder;
• continuous updating of databases with data from tested plant species,
• putting the created library into practical use - the process of initializing the library