Buzzing: UM program trains master beekeepers worldwide

Despite the balmy June heat, Tamila Morgan was clad head to toe in a tan beekeeping suit as hives teeming with the fuzzy black and yellow pollinators buzzed behind her at the Fort Missoula apiary. 

“I’m like, really allergic to bees,” Morgan said with a laugh. “So I’m just careful.” 

Despite her allergy, Morgan, a beekeeper based out of Arlington, Washington, has taken every online beekeeping course the University of Montana offers – plus a few extra – to ascend to the level of master beekeeper.  

Part of UMOnline, the Beekeeping Certificate Program allows students located anywhere in the world – 22 countries so far, to be exact – to learn the skills necessary to become a certified master beekeeper from a team of instructors lauded as one of the nation’s foremost honeybee research teams.  

“There are hundreds of beekeeping courses. What makes ours different – and better – is  we teach at a college level,” said Dr. Scott Debnam, a beekeeping certificate instructor and graduate of UM’s Wildlife Biology Program. “That is just not how other beekeeping courses are offered.” 

When UM first began offering the certificate over 10 years ago, it was taught via traditional in-person courses. Soon instructors realized they’d educated every interested student in the region. They expanded the program to an online format, initially offering one class – apprentice beekeeping – that filled up in 40 minutes, with a waitlist.  

“It's been like that every time, so we keep making more classes,” Debnam said. Those classes too continue to fill up. “We offer it, they take it.” 

Classes are now taught up to 50 weeks out of the year. The certificate consists of three core classes: apprentice, journeyman and master beekeeping. After completing each, participants become certified master beekeepers.  

As pollinators, bees have inherent value to the planet’s well-being and represent significant economic interest for agriculture. 

“They’re generalists – they visit a lot of different plants and often change what plants they’re visiting on a daily basis sometimes, but definitely throughout the season,” Debnam said. “They’re of tremendous value to the ecosystem.” 

According to instructors, traditional beekeeping practices are no longer sufficient to keep bees alive, healthy and producing at full capacity. 

“They're the highest value, economically speaking, of any pollinator we utilize for crops,” Debnam said. With colonies up to 60,000 individuals, “other pollinators just cannot come even close to those numbers.”  

Shepherding new cohorts of informed, educated beekeepers versed in the science of beekeeping is critical to combatting the diseases, pests and other challenges bees face more than ever before.  

Students in UMOnline’s program first study the basics of handling honeybees and then learn about diagnosing pests and diseases, managing hives, honey production and marketing, and the business of beekeeping.  

Instructors meet with students for lessons online, participate in discussions and answer a wide array of questions. They teach students how to diagnose issues using a microscope; how to properly read, locate and evaluate scientific literature; and how to conduct experiments and collect data on their own colonies.  

“We will teach you the intimate details of honeybees – their biology, their ecology,” Debnam said. “Then we go into the practice of beekeeping. Unless you understand what the organism is doing, you can’t really understand what it is you should be doing.” 

Each course is only a few weeks in length, but the program takes three years to complete so students have a full year of experience practicing their expertise between every class. Remote students must show they’ve successfully mastered a course’s skills before moving up another level.  

Students of any skill level can take the course, even if they’ve never kept a single bee before. Many take the apprentice-level class to learn the basics before purchasing their bees.  

Debnam hopes students learn to answer their own questions by the end of the certificate.  

“What you should do as a beekeeper heavily depends on your beekeeping goals and values, but if I teach them the biology and ecology around their questions, they can make their own decision about what is best for their colonies,” he said.  

Several new classes appeal to different students depending on their beekeeping goals. They include Natural Beekeeping, Commercial Honey Production, Queen Rearing and Overwintering, among others. Equipped with her beekeeper suit and an EpiPen, Morgan has taken every one.  

She also taught as a guest instructor when UM offered a two-day beekeeping field course for the first time this summer. Students traveled to Missoula for in-person instruction at Fort Missoula, learning beekeeping techniques inside classrooms and outside at the apiary. Topics covered ranged from mite impact and treatment to colony handling and grafting queens. 

Sharing the knowledge she learned through UMOnline’s certificate is crucial to Morgan. She initially “failed miserably” at keeping bees until finding a local mentor and seeking out additional education, eventually stumbling across UM’s program. Morgan was attracted to the vigorous nature of the certificate.   

“I liked that they base things on research,” she said. “Their credibility, their professionalism.” 

Morgan now oversees 100-plus hives of her own. She also founded Stilly Valley Bee Collective, a treatment-free collective in the Pacific Northwest that has ballooned in growth and spread best practices in beekeeping through mentorship and classes. Last year she mentored two people. This year, it’s 20. 

“Instead of competing against each other, we help each other,” Morgan said. “We have a whole gamut of people in our collective. The idea of it is that everybody has something to offer.” 

Morgan also operates a queen breeding program targeting queens that thrive in colder climates. This summer, some of those queens came to live at UM’s apiary for research.  

Some may be perplexed by the thought of working with a creature whose sting could cause an allergic reaction. Morgan acknowledged beekeeping has its good days and bad, but said using and sharing the beekeeping knowledge she gained through UM gives her purpose. And she feels most calm when she’s out with the bees.  

“I love bees. I close my eyes and I see bees. I like the sound of the bees. I like the smell,” Morgan said. “Just to look out as the sun is setting and to see the bees – they have little freeways in the sky, and they’re going back and forth. And as the day progresses in the evening, it’s just peaceful.”