Bastrop County Beekeeping Ag Exemption

Bastrop County CAD's ag manual runs a tract past four requirements before it grants anything. The application reaches the land, not the buildings on it. The land has to be in agriculture now, and agriculture has to be its main use. It has to meet the degree of intensity test, and for bees the district counts that in hives. And it has to pass the time period test, which is a history of farming behind it.

Bastrop County CAD opens the Beekeeping section of its ag manual with what the bees have to be kept for. Land qualifies where the bees are kept for pollination, or to produce human food, or to produce another tangible product carrying commercial value. The general sections decide whether you get to use any of it. Under Current Devotion to Agricultural Use in the manual, the district writes that the land must be currently devoted to agricultural use and must qualify on January 1, and that it must stay in a qualifying use throughout the year. That's a current-use test. A signed agreement with no colonies standing on the place doesn't meet it, and a plan to put them out in the spring doesn't either.

On a site we manage, the beekeeping agreement has to be signed by the end of September, with placement running October into December behind it, so the colonies are standing when the year turns. Sourcing your own bees instead puts you on the package calendar, and package bees land in Central Texas in April and on into May. January 1 has gone by then, and so has that tax year.

The Beekeeping section of the district's ag manual requires a minimum of six hives and one more for every 2.5 acres, then provides a table stepping from six hives at five acres to twelve at twenty. Every row in that table lands on an exact 2.5-acre mark. A tract in between is held to the highest row its acreage reaches, so seven acres sits on the five-acre row at six hives. Our recommendation is to go to the next level of intensity. On seven acres that's seven hives, and the extra colony is cheap insurance to ensure you meet the production intensity requirements. Call Bastrop County CAD with your own acreage before you build from it.

The State of Texas has set a minimum of five acres and a maximum of twenty to qualify beekeeping as an agricultural use. Water wells, roads and stock tanks are included in the land's value. Where a residence sits on the tract, an acre comes off for the homesite, which is the piece a Tax Code 11.13 homestead exemption attaches to. Six acres with a house leaves five available for bee ag use and just makes the floor. Five acres with a house doesn't. We do that last piece of arithmetic ourselves, running the hive count on the net figure. But it's not a bad idea to discuss your situation with Bastrop County CAD. The district states that all contiguous parcels under one ownership count as a single piece of property. In our experience the intensity then gets measured against that combined acreage, so two adjoining four-acre plats that each fall short of the five-acre floor alone can clear it together. Each situation is unique, so discuss yours with Bastrop County CAD.

The time period test catches raw land. The district requires five of the seven years before your application to have been principally in agricultural use or timber production, and you have to show it. A place that has never been worked has no years behind it yet. Those years attach to the acreage itself, so a tract that's been in hay for a decade brings them along to a buyer. The district grants the valuation to one legal ownership and it terminates automatically on any transfer, so a buyer files a new application, and the district doesn't have to send a reminder.

Bastrop County CAD publishes a productivity value for bee hives, and for 2026 it's $330.90 an acre against $72.70 for native pasture. Productivity value is the figure the tax gets calculated on. On a place already coded native pasture, converting to bees raises the agricultural value. Against market value on acreage in the SH 71 and US 290 corridors the saving is still large enough to be the reason people do this. Against a pasture code it isn't a saving at all. If your land already qualifies some other way, bees may be the more expensive class here, and you should know that before you call anybody.

The Filing Information section of the manual puts the deadline before May 1, which means the form has to be postmarked or filed no later than midnight on April 30. For good cause the chief appraiser may stretch it by as much as 60 days, provided your request is in writing and lands before April 30 runs out. Good cause isn't defined in the Property Tax Code, though the manual notes it's commonly something outside the applicant's control.

A late application is still accepted until midnight the day before the Appraisal Review Board approves the appraisal records, and it costs a penalty worth 10% of the gap between what the tract would owe at market value and what it owes on the agricultural productivity value. Where the chief appraiser extended your deadline, that penalty doesn't apply. File nothing at all before the board approves the roll and the land is ineligible for the year.

Where the chief appraiser asks for more information to settle the application, you have 30 days from the date of that request to get it back to the district. Miss it and the application is denied. A denial arrives by certified mail, carrying the reasons and a note on how to protest to the Appraisal Review Board. From the date on that letter you have 30 days to file a protest, and it has to be in writing. Bring everything you have to the hearing.

Once the district approves the application the land keeps the valuation year on year without a new one, unless the ownership changes, the land's eligibility ends, or the chief appraiser calls for a fresh application. The district checks the intensity in the year you apply and every year after that. The reporting runs the other way too. You have to notify the district in writing if the land's ownership, eligibility or use type changes, and in writing before April 30 if you're going to let the land lie idle for the year. The chief appraiser can ask for a fresh application to confirm the tract still qualifies, and that request arrives by certified mail.

Falling short of the intensity in a given year is a smaller thing than the rollback, and the manual keeps the two apart. Keep farming the land without holding the degree of intensity and the manual says the land may lose its eligibility for 1-d-1 appraisal without incurring a rollback. Lose it and it costs you the year's valuation. A drought is the sole exception. Where the governor declares one, and it creates an agricultural necessity to keep the land out of production longer than normal, and you intend to resume the same use at the same intensity once it lifts, eligibility survives the shortfall. Both halves of that have to hold. The rollback itself runs off a change of use, and the manual defines that as a physical change. Agriculture stops, or the land goes to a non-agricultural use. Selling doesn't trigger it. Divert only part of a tract and the rollback reaches only the changed portion, three years back from the change of use date. The chief appraiser has to send written notice of that determination, and that notice is what you protest.

Land inside an incorporated city or town carries an extra bar. The district states that such land has to meet the criteria applicable to 1-d-1 land and then one of three further criteria on top. Either the city isn't providing it general services comparable to what other parts of town with similar features and population density get, or agriculture has been the land's principal use without a break across the five years preceding, or it's been in agriculture or timber without a break across those five years and is in wildlife management. Clearing that bar lifts the city restriction and leaves all four requirements standing.

On a place we manage, the colonies stay on your land year-round and our beekeepers are out at least once a month through the year. Colonies die. We replace a dead-out the moment we find it or you tell us, so the count is back at the district's standard and the loss is a non-issue. Our Texas Apiary Inspection Service registration covers the counties we operate in and each apiary location, and your place goes onto it with the rest of our yards. You get documentation showing your land is registered, which is one more piece of evidence for your file. Bastrop County CAD strongly encourages that registration as supporting documentation but stops short of requiring it. Every visit goes into the Outlaw Hideout, so you can pull your own visit record and print it for the district.

The honey belongs to you. Not everybody wants the job of selling it, and where that's the case we'll put an offer in front of you for the crop. We also run a packaging option covering bottling and labeling, which leaves you holding a product that's ready for sale.

Post oak savannah runs into blackland across this county, with yaupon under the oaks. Bluebonnet and white clover come on early, horsemint and prairie verbena work the warm months, and goldenrod is the last of it. Mesquite is scattered right through. We walk the place first, log what's already standing on it, and tell you what that will and won't carry through the year. The full bloom list is available in our wildflower journal.

You file the application, and when an appraiser comes out, they work with you. We give you the record of what's standing on the place so you can hand it over. Nobody can promise you the valuation. That's the chief appraiser's call, every year.