After just 10 years, Heroes to Hives has become the country’s largest agricultural training program for U.S. military service members.
Founded in Michigan in 2015 by Adam and Lacey Ingrao, the beekeeping program was expanded in Missouri in 2021. Over the last decade, Heroes to Hives has trained more than 15,000 service members and their dependents from all over the world.
This no-cost, nine-month, online beginning beekeeping education course is designed to train U.S. service members in the art and science of beekeeping to prepare them to be successful in the beekeeping industry as a hobby, a career, or as a therapeutic practice.
After hearing Adam speak at a conference in Indiana six years ago, MU Extension employees, Karen Funkenbusch and Joni Harper believed the program would be a good fit for Missouri and asked Adam Ingrao about expanding the program outside of Michigan.
“He agreed and we spent 2020 planning, and debuted the program in Missouri in 2021,” Travis Harper, who runs the teaching apiary in Warrensburg, Mo. said.
Travis also helps establish the curriculum and works with the rest of the MU Extension Heroes to Hives team members to facilitate the program each year.
The program has proved to be a successful way to address the financial and personal wellness of veterans through free professional training and community development centered around beekeeping.
“Many of the participants in our program have gone on to start their own beekeeping-related businesses,” Travis said. “This has ranged from selling honey and other products of the hive, to apitourism, apitourism is a new way of combining bees and beekeeping with travel), to the manufacturing of beekeeping equipment, to the production and selling of the bees themselves. Many veterans have found personal wellness through beekeeping, much as they would from other outdoor agricultural activities such as gardening or the raising of livestock.”
The nine-month program is an intensive course, and when most veterans finish it, they are ready to keep bees on their own. The program not only provides a deep knowledge of beekeeping, it also creates personal and professional relationships for them while ensuring long-term peer support.
“Most of the veterans participating in our program have a natural connection with other veterans and develop relationships, both personal and professional, that last beyond the time-frame of the program,” Travis said.
Research regarding how veterans with PTSD are helped by this program is limited, the fact that service members know this vital profession will help save pollinators is important.
“We feel that beekeeping - and the Heroes to Hives program - has a benefit for those dealing with PTSD,” Travis said. “Beekeeping requires veterans to clear their minds and focus on the task at hand while they are working with the bees. There is also some evidence that the buzzing coming from the hive has a positive impact on those dealing with PTSD.”
The Heroes to Hives program in Missouri consists of three parts: monthly online training modules from the national Heroes to Hives office in Michigan that participants work through at their own pace, (March through November), monthly hands-on training at one of the teaching apiaries in Missouri, (April through October), and monthly live Zoom meetings on topics specific to Missouri beekeeping (March through October).
“2025 is the fifth year the program has been held in Missouri and we have trained more than 1,500 Missouri veterans,” Travis said.
“We regularly do evaluations, and speak directly with the veterans, to get feedback from the program. Those that regularly participate in the majority of activities have seen the program to be a great benefit to them. It is important to remember that we have students with all levels of interest in beekeeping. Some just want to know more about beekeeping and figure out whether it is something they would be interested in pursuing further. Some of these decide it is not for them, and that is just fine.”
Working with the veterans at the field days to accomplish the beekeeping tasks for that month is highly rewarding for Travis.
“It is rewarding to see a hobby beekeeper take their endeavor to the next level, more of a commercial type of operation,” Travis said. “It is rewarding to see someone brand new to beekeeping actually follow up and get started as a hobby beekeeper themselves.”