As the sweet-toothed among us know, Austin is a city uniquely suited to produce excellent honey. With access to free blooming organic herbs and flowers, and big swaths of green space to explore, local bees are hard at work year round gathering nectar for some of the most delicious artisanal honey.
But August is honey month, and what better time is there to appreciate our local bees and the hard work they do, making honey for infused simple syrups in our cocktails, marinades on our grills, and dressings for our salad. Why not swing by your local hive and show those ladies some love?
Round Rock Honey
This Central Texas wildflower honey standby specializes in raw, unfiltered, unheated honey straight from (as they put it) field to hive to table, which preserves a unique antibacterial, antioxidant heavy blend. While their honey is probably stocked on the shelves of your local HEB, you can now go straight to the source with daily factory tours. You can learn about their hives and harvesting techniques before participating in a honey tasting, as well as two-hour weekend beekeeping classes.
Good Flow Honey
This Cedar Creek-based family operation has been producing their honey since 1975, which means that adorable father-son duo Tom and Daniel Crofut have about a 30 year jump on all the other honey producers in town. They take a sustainable, bee-welfare-centric approach to producing both conventionally processed and raw, unfiltered honey in varieties like wildflower, avocado, and mountain clover. If you’re as serious about eating honey as they are about making it, you can even pick up a 60 pound bucket for bulk consumption, which you can scoop out with your fist like some kind of demented human version of Winnie the Pooh.
Austin Honey Company
Instead of managing a factory style hive facility of their own, Austin Honey places their bees on local organic farms within a 30-mile radius of the city, where they have a symbiotic relationship with the crops pollinating the produce and supporting a holistic approach to creating strong Austinite foodways. They also devote time to educating consumers on planning bee-friendly landscapes, homes and businesses, and supporting a thriving community of wild pollinators for generations to come.
Two Hives
Aside from offering witty slogan T-shirts (shake your honeymaker, anyone?) and lovely little boxes of golden-edged comb, this urban bee farm celebrates the art of city living and beekeeping with daily tours at their multiple micro-apiaries scattered throughout the city. It’s an amazing chance to get a bee’s eye view of familiar territory, with each apiary’s community of bees producing a unique honey that reflects the flavor of the neighborhood. Those interested in building urban hives of their own can undertake a six month beekeeping apprenticeship.
Bee Friendly Austin
Tanya Phillips, master beekeeper and volunteer director of the Texas Beekeeper’s association, and her husband Chuck Reburn, are serious bee nerds. Aside from managing over 150 colonies in Travis and Hays counties, they make their own mead, raw honey, beeswax candles, lotions, lip balms, and soaps, and sell beekeeping equipment to interested amateurs. Interested in joining the hive mind? Join them on the annual Tour de Hives for an inside look at the world of Central Texas Honey.
This article appears in Blaze Foley.