"That buzzing-noise means something. If there's a buzzing noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee. .... And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey..... And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it."
-Winnie the Pooh
In the Spring of 2008, KXAN-TV reporter Jim Swift asked Round Rock Honey owner Konrad Bouffard what motivated him to start keeping bees. Without a second's hesitation, he said, "the honey!" Although bees, and to lesser extent beekeeping, have a long, multi-faceted, and rich history going back to the rise of flowering plants during the Mesozoic era, the modern history of beekeeping (and honey production) in Texas, and specifically central Texas (Round Rock), is far more interesting to modern Texans who love Round Rock Honey! So, consider this...
Although The European honey bee had been brought to North America from England in 1622, it did not reach Texas until 1797. Thanks to Stephen F. Austin, beekeeping in central Texas really took off around 1821. At the time, beekeepers were referred to by many as "bee hunters" because most honey was robbed from trees and caves, not kept in man-made hives. Fortunately, all that changed in the 1860's and 1870's with the introduction of standardized hives (Langstroth's movable frame hive), and a flood of German immigrant-farmers, many of whom were already experienced beekeepers. By 1900 beekeeping in Texas was widespread and part of a rural lifestyle. Konrad Bouffard's own grandfather, EC "Pete" Bouffard, was a farmer in Georgetown near the present-day Lake Georgetown Dam, who kept bees on his land to pollinate his crops.
Early Texas settlers and colonists were very successful raising bees in Texas because pollen-producing plants were abundant, and honey flow superior to most other parts of North America. In fact, early Texas beekeepers occasionally speculated that apiaries in Texas would ultimately become grand enough to rival the top honey producing region of North America at the time, Cuba! A frontier woman named Mrs. Mary Austin Holly, from her journal titled Texas, described the beauty and abundance of the land and the honey-bees:
"The honey-bee seems to have found a favorite haunt in Texas. These industrious insects swarm in great abundance in every district, and beeswax and honey may be produced in any quantity and without the least expense...The forests…are visited by numerous swarms…which deposit their luscious stores in various hollow trees. The prairie is garnished with an endless variety of beautiful and fragrant flowers; making a landscape of indescribable and surpassing loveliness…an Elysium for the florist and poet."
Today Texas is still the best place on earth to raise bees and produce honey. In fact, by some estimates, Texas apiaries today produce more than 250 different types of honey! Although the days of endless unsettled prairie and vast virgin forests are long gone, Texas maintains its place, year in and year out, as a top honey-producing state. More importantly, the unparalleled geography of central Texas, split by the Balcones escarpment, underpinned by the Edwards aquifer, surrounded by four separate and unique biomes, and blessed with more than 335 days of sunshine each year, affords for the production of copious amounts of heirloom-quality Round Rock Honey.
