Ten Box Bees Speaks to Cleburne Rotary on Bees, Honey and Ag Exemptions (Cleburne Times-Review)

On August 27, 2026, Ten Box Bees founder William Simmons spoke to the Cleburne Rotary Club about how honeybees fit into Johnson County agriculture, why Texas lets small landowners qualify for agricultural valuation with hives, and where Ten Box Bees is headed next. The Cleburne Times-Review covered the talk in "Rotary buzzes with bees, honey and tax breaks" (Matt Smith, September 6, 2026).

How Ten Box Bees started

William told the room the honest version: he bought recreational land in 2017 thinking a couple of goats would get him an ag exemption, found out fencing and livestock would cost more than the tax savings, and went back to the appraisal district to ask what else qualified. The answer was bees. He bought his first commercial hives from a beekeeper he found on Facebook, set them up, and lost colonies repeatedly before he learned how to keep them alive in North Texas. Five years later the ag valuation kicked in, neighbors started asking how they could do the same, and the hive leasing program was born.

What he told Rotary about the ag exemption

• Texas law allows land of 5 to 20 acres to qualify for agricultural valuation with honeybees. Before 2012, tracts that small had no practical path to an ag exemption at all.
• Each county appraisal district sets its own hive count. Johnson County, Tarrant, Parker, Hood, Wise and Somervell all differ. Ten Box Bees publishes a guide for each: Johnson County, Tarrant County, Parker County.
• Ten Box Bees leases fully managed hives at $385 per hive per year. Ten Box Bees crews install and maintain the colonies; the landowner does not touch them.
• Most clients save $4,000 to $8,000 per year in property taxes once the valuation is in place. Land with no prior ag history has a five-year wait; land already under ag valuation converts immediately.
• What started as 10 hives on one property is now about 900 hives, most of them on roughly 75 client properties across Johnson, Tarrant and surrounding counties.

Honey, land work, and what is next

William also covered the rest of the operation: honey from the leased hives is bottled under the Fort Worth Honey brand as local wildflower, clover, and a chili-infused hot honey; Ten Box Bees sells nucs, queens and equipment to people who want to keep their own bees; and the company does road building, fence building and brush clearing for landowners. He previewed two things coming to the Honey Farm in Burleson: hands-on beekeeping classes, and an agri-tourism site with small cabins built over active beehives so guests can sleep above a working colony, hear the hum, and breathe hive air without being stung.

His summary of beekeeping to the Rotarians: it is not hard, but it is not easy, and the job of Ten Box Bees is to make something complicated simple for landowners.

Read the full article

Rotary buzzes with bees, honey and tax breaks — Cleburne Times-Review, September 6, 2026.

Interested in a talk for your club, school, or landowner group? Ten Box Bees speaks regularly on bees, ag exemptions, and small-acreage land management across Johnson County and DFW. Call or text William at 940-597-5219 or get in touch here.