Texas Honey
The hum of honeybees in the air means another Texas spring has arrived. Early in March, bee colonies begin to forage the flowering brush of South Texas and white Dutch clover blooming along river bottoms. As the season moves on, the bees visit coastal Chinese tallow trees, cotton blossoms from Central Texas to the High Plains, fields of wildflowers and pastures to gather the sweet nectar they convert to honey.

Texas has 240 full-time commercial beekeepers, family farmers who manage the bulk of the state's 105,000 bee colonies and $4.7 million honey crop. An additional 1,500 part-timers and 15,000 hobbyists contribute to the honey flow. Altogether, the colonies manufacture enough honey to make Texas the country's seventh-leading producer.

Found in 17 counties south and east of Bryan, Chinese Tallow trees yield the largest volume of Texas honey. They're followed by South Texas brush - cat claw, white brush, black brush and huajillo. Cotton, clover, alfalfa, mesquite and citrus also produce sizeable crops. Texans with a taste for wildflower or horsemint, a robust, minty-tasting honey, can find those too, along with local floral varieties such as star thistle, which grows in dormant Gulf Coast rice fields.

Interesting facts:

• Busy as a bee? You bet. Honeybees may visit more than 2 million flowers during a 55,000 mile journey just to gather enough nectar for one pound of honey.
• Honeybees pollinate 80 percent of U.S. crops dependent on insect pollination, accounting for some 3.5 million acres of fruit, vegetable, oilseed and legume seed crops. An additional 63 million acres derive some benefits from insect pollination.
• Texas boasts the biggest honey packer in the Southwest and the oldest in the United States - Burleson's Honey in Waxahachie, which turns 96 this year. Burleson's is also the only major honey packer in Texas.