Texas has become the ‘mecca of beekeeping’ and Dallas businesses are getting in on it
Dallas businesses are buzzing...with bees.
Across the United States, the agriculture sector is grappling with a dramatic decline in honey bees. As scientists fret over the loss of pollinators and what it could mean for supplies of honey, an estimated 60% to 70% of existing colonies are expected to be lost this year.
That could have a significant impact on the food supply. According to U.S. Agriculture Department data, annual honey bee production is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
But in Dallas, numerous colorful hand-painted wooden bee boxes have been surfacing all over the area in recent months.
They’re being installed atop downtown skyrises, on hotels roofs, parking garages and in empty lots like one off the Dallas North Tollway.
“Some of this was already being done, but we knew we could do it better,” Oak Cliff Bee Co. founder and beekeeper Chris Chance said.
Oak Cliff Bee Co. was initially founded as a way support the farm and growing agricultural program thriving off the front parking lot at Mount St. Michael Catholic School in west Oak Cliff.
Chance later saw the opportunity to expand the business.
Established in 2023, Oak Cliff specializes in corporate hive management. The company’s objective is to “bring bees to business,” by installing the boxes on location, maintaining the hives with regular check-ins on the health of the colonies, and harvesting honey when possible.
According to Chance, what started as a simple love for bees has turned into a bold movement.
The company has installed dozens of hives, recently breaking triple digits, at businesses throughout Dallas-Fort Worth and has apiaries in Dallas, Collin and Henderson counties.
“And, we try to do everything as Dallas-centric as we can,” Chance said.
A “mecca for beekeeping”
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, dozens of people gathered in the Hilton Anatole’s rotunda to peer through a hallway window.
In the sunny courtyard on the other side of the glass, Shannon LaGrave, Oak Cliff Bee Co.’s chief training officer and former Collin County Honey Queen and Texas Honey Princess, led a demonstration with EarthX CEO Rajan Singh.
Both suited up, they used a smoker on the hive to calm the insects before inspecting each frame. They analyzed the different colors of honey as the crowd made noises of approval, while eating a creamy cheesecake made with honey from the hotel’s bees.
About 40 pounds of honey is harvested twice a year from the hives, hotel general manager Bruce Roy said, adding they could probably use even more.
“It’s just so great that we can have this for our guests,” he said, gesturing at the bees who live in the grassy area year-round.
LaGrave continued scanning her eyes across the blobs of bees, pointing out interesting tidbits.
Now a Texas Master Beekeeper, she’s been interested in bees since she was elementary aged and recites facts about the pollinators almost subconsciously.
“Did you know?” she’ll ask, that:
- Honeybees can travel up to 12-mile radius from their hives, they smell like bananas when they’re aggravated, and when a queen is missing from a colony you can usually hear a dull roaring sound.
- Different pollen creates different flavors, textures and colors of honey. Most Texas honey is dark like unsweet tea while honey made with pollen from kudzu is purple.
- Varroa mites are the “bogeyman of beekeeping.”
- Perhaps one of the most important facts: “Texas is a mecca for beekeeping,” LaGrave said. “Texas in general but North Texas, especially.”
More bee operations than ever
Beekeeping in Texas, including in urban areas, has its perks.
There’s the sweet, sticky honey, but also the tax break.
In 2012, a new Texas law made it possible for people to get property tax cuts if they kept bees on the land for five years. After that, beekeeping in the Lone Star State boomed.
“Texas beekeeping is in a league of its own,” according to an analysis from The Washington Post last spring that reported there could be a record number of bee farms in the U.S.
Data collected by the newspaper showed there was an explosion of beekeeping operations in Texas — from 1,284 in 2007 to 8,939 in 2022. Many of them were small-scale producers.
The Lone Star State went from having the sixth-most bee operations in the nation to having more than the bottom 21 states combined, and the largest increase occurred in North Texas.
The goal with the corporate beekeeping is to be responsible stewards of the bees, champion for sustainable practices and raise awareness about the insect’s importance in the ecosystem, Chance said.
His clients are having fun with it, too. On a foggy morning in late February, the beekeepers rode the freight elevator up to the roof of the Renaissance Dallas Hotel with three bright yellow hive boxes.
Mason James, executive chef of the hotel’s farm-to-table restaurant Asador, stood feet away as the hives were strapped down and secured.
He smiled thinking of the recipes he’ll eventually get to showcase the honey in, like vinaigrettes and butter.
“This is a real neat aspect for the hotel to have,” he said before posing for a photograph with the boxes.
Within hours, Chance, LaGrave and Alexis Islas went from the Stemmons Corridor to installing hives at a parking lot in Lincoln Centre. North Dallas traffic whizzed by as they performed a routine check on the bees on the top floor of a parking garage at Greenhill Towers in Addison.
As the springtime weather brings warmer temperatures to North Texas, Oak Cliff Bee Co.’s schedule is also heating up, with more installations at places like the North Texas Food Bank, or in corporate towers along McKinney Avenue in downtown, mentoring kids at the school bee club, visits with specialists and more.
“You can bring wildlife and agriculture as a whole into the middle of Dallas and make it work for you,” LaGrave said.
For Oak Cliff Bee Co., it’s all proof that urban beekeeping can — and is — thriving.
Chance said by turning rooftops into ecosystems and sustainability into measurable value, he believes his company is reshaping how people see their role in the world.
“Hive by hive, we’re creating value, elevating sustainability and proving that local roots can drive powerful impact,” he said.
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