Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Let’s visit Texas Honey Bee Farm in Austin, Texas. Learn facts about bees and get Local Austin Honey. Bonus: San Antonio Riverwalk Pictures!
Got To Bee There
Texas Honey Bee Farm
In September, I spent a couple of weeks in Austin, Texas, on a family visit. On one of our first days there, we decided to visit Texas Honey Bee Farm for a tour and honey tasting.
The farm is a shopping location for beekeepers, but is also a great destination for people who are interested in bees and like to see the way honey is made. We took the guided tour, learned some facts about bees and had honey tasting.
The Honey Bee Farm
We had a guided tour at the bee observation deck, a screened porch close to the hives. Our fantastic guide told us about the life of bees, functions in the hive, honey production, and the role of beekeepers. The tour took about an hour, perhaps a bit more, and was very interesting.
The Honey Bees
Bees have a critical role in the pollination of many plants and are therefore vital for agriculture and food production. They also have a very intriguing social structure, with a single queen, who’s busy laying eggs, and many workers, who take care of the hive, collect nectar and pollen, take care of the young, and so on. The genetics of the social honey bee make the workers genetically closer to each other than usual sisters would be, even closer than parent and offspring are. In evolutionary biology terms, this explains the ‘motive’ of single bees not to reproduce themselves and instead contribute to the success of their supersisters.
Another fascinating aspect of the life of honey bees is bee communication. Scout bees are worker bees whose job is to find new sources of food. When they find such a source and come back to the hive, they communicate the location of the source to the forager bees, who can then collect it and bring it to the hive.
Watch this short video to see how this works:
The Honey
After the tour, we went inside the shop and had honey tasting. This beautiful Austin farm has local raw honey of different sources, such as wildflower, orange blossom, tallow, even buckwheat. My favorite was the mesquite honey. We accompanied the honey tasting with slices of apples. Dipping apples in honey is a custom of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year, which is celebrated that time of year.
Apart from raw honey, we tasted spice infused honey (great as marinade) and creamed/caramelized honey. These were also wonderful, but I liked the taste of raw honey better.
The Shop
After the tastings, we checked out the shop. Besides different types of honey (which I, of course, bought) the shop offers candles, bags, books, and other souvenirs.
The online shop is here.
Overall, very nice visit. Strongly recommended if you visit Austin and love bees and/or honey.
Shanah Tova (Happy New Year)!
San Antonio Riverwalk Pictures
Apart from seeing bees in Austin, we also had a day trip to San Antonio and walked through the beautiful River Walk.
The San Antonio River Walk is a stunning pedestrian street and park, lined with numerous restaurants, shops, and other attractions.
Read more about it here.
Not Into Bees?
Read about birds, cats, boars, or snakes instead.
I Want to Visit Texas, But…
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