On Wed, 16 Dec 2015 12:42:57 -0500, John Macdougall  
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Here in the UK, the term Master Beekeeper is used by the British  
> Beekeepers'
> Association (BBKA) for its most advanced qualification.

The BBKA certification requirements do indeed look daunting, but then  
again Europe has the distinct advantage of being able to centralize such  
processes and impose standards. No such luck in the US.

 From a personal perspective, I've looked at the EAS Master Beekeeper  
certification as a means of enhancing my bee education. But getting no  
feedback from them on my inquiries, I turned to other options. Enter Prof.  
Bromenshenk's online course at Univ. of Montana. Having just graduated  
 from the second (Journeyman) course and staring at the new Hive and the  
Honey Bee brick sitting on my desk (it IS intimidating!), I have to say  
that these courses have quickly dissuaded me from calling online courses  
'easy'. You really have to stay on your toes, put the required hours every  
week, and above all, don't make stupid comments on the class forums.  
Otherwise the instructors are very quick to call you on it, :-) To me the  
combination of weekly, focused theme, combined with forum discussions  
where a lot of textbook info gets clarified was the best and the classes  
really have a crosscut of beekeepers: newbies, commercial, hobbyists, as  
well beekeepers from outside the US. One would think that with such a mix  
there would be some discussions that would be just "eh, who needs that",  
but part of your grade is forum participation, so you have to be engaged.  
It was quite interesting to see many points in discussions, something that  
one doesn't get just by reading a book, and it certainly opened my eyes on  
a lot of bee-related issues, here and abroad.

The EAS certification basically gives one a list of 20+ something  
textbooks that one has to familiarize with and that's just the theory. One  
of the 4 exams is with microscopes, so good luck getting training on that  
on your own. In the Journeymen's class at UMT we had to use microscopes  
and it was fantastic - I would've never figured out how to count Nosema  
spores just by staring at a textbook picture. (Don't tell my wife I've  
used our cappuccino cups to grind the bees - it was the only conveniently  
shaped vessel I could find at the moment, :-))

Bottom line, I might tackle EAS certification later on just to see what  
the difference is, but the UMT classes are fabulous for any hobbyist  
looking to expand his/her knowledge of bees. The Journeyman class can also  
appeal to a lot of commercial guys with its emphasis on handy pest testing  
techniques. And you get a certificate at the end, :-)

Przemek

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