Columbia Beekeeping Program Helps Veterans Heal

Columbia’s Jefferson Farm and Garden is home to a Missouri chapter of Heroes to Hives, a national beekeeping program for military veterans. Organizers say the program also helps participants find a sense of purpose and community.

What Is Heroes to Hives?

Heroes to Hives started at Michigan State University in 2011 and has since grown to enroll more than 1,700 veterans nationwide, according to the Columbia Missourian. The Missouri effort, run through University of Missouri Extension, has been building for six years at Jefferson Farm and Garden on New Haven Road, where organizers have set up a Slovenian-style bee house using AŽ hives — a design with frames that slide out sideways like books on a shelf, rather than being lifted from above.

That design matters for veterans managing injuries. The AŽ hives are far lighter than a traditional hive, which can weigh 50 to 100 pounds, and can be worked from a seated position at a site that’s wheelchair-accessible.

Why Veterans Say It Helps

John Harper, the program’s co-director and an MU natural resources field specialist, said the payoff shows up in small moments. “It’s really awesome to see when it clicks with some people, that it really means something to them,” Harper told the Missourian. Co-director Karen Funkenbusch, an MU Extension professor, said much the same: “I love everything about working with our veterans.”

Scott Young, a retired beekeeper who now tends 12 hives through the program, said he came looking for something to fill the space retirement left behind. “After spending so many years in a demanding career, I needed something meaningful and rewarding to focus on in retirement,” he told the Missourian. He has since gone on to lead seminars for occupational therapy students on the program’s adaptive hive designs.

Participants can also sell honey from the hives they tend, giving the program a financial dimension alongside its social and mental-health benefits. It’s one more example of mid-Missouri groups finding practical ways to support former service members — not unlike a Columbia 5K that raises money for veterans’ food assistance or a recent grant helping build homes for Boone County veterans and other families.