BeeMoSeq

The current floral characterization of pollen contained in honey is carried out by melissopalynology, which is a meticulous technique based in the identification of the each pollen structure and the further counting to determine if a honey is monofloral or polyfloral. Amazingly each flower produces a specific pollen with a defined structure, but as the honey is made from many flowers its health properties will depend from the flowers proportions. However, this technique takes many hours, it is carried out by specialists and it lacks from robustness sometimes. Therefore in Hackuarium we have thought to use a molecular approach to know exactly the many floral species present in a honey sample. The goal of BeeMoSeq is to link the pollen with the flower by using a molecular barcode. Luckily for us, to achieve this goal Hackuarium has a good background in molecular biology, carrying out in the past two workshops for the community Open Food Repo. BeemoSeq represents a project to complement BeeMoS only that specializing in the molecular barcoding from one important part from the hive, the honey.