Lee County Beekeeping Ag Exemption

Before Lee County CAD grants the valuation, the land has to have been devoted principally to agricultural use in five of the seven years before you apply, and there's no shortcut through that. The BEES section of the district's ag manual counts beekeeping as one of those agricultural uses, so a tract that has never carried cattle or a crop can start. Agricultural use means the bees are actually out there working, so build the history at the count your acreage calls for from the first year. You'll run those hives for five years and file in each of them, and the valuation starts in year six.

The timing starts on January 1. State law appraises land as it stands that day, so colonies that go out after it generally count toward the next tax year rather than the one you're filing for. Working back from that, an agreement signed by the end of September leaves October through December to get colonies onto the place and standing before January 1. A yearly application should go in through each of the years you're building that history. The window for filing opens January 1 and April 30 is the deadline. Where there's good cause the chief appraiser may extend that deadline by up to 60 days, which is worth asking about before April 30 rather than after. If the filing deadline passes without an extension, the chief appraiser still has to take the late application. The cutoff is the appraisal review board's approval of that year's appraisal records, which usually lands some time in July. Filing late costs 10 percent of the difference between the tax on the land and the tax at market value. Once the board signs off, that year is generally gone.

The valuation reaches every eligible acre of the tract. On page 6 the district writes that "Ag will be granted on total acreage, not just where the hives are located." On twenty acres that's the difference between valuing the property and valuing a bee yard. Not every acre is eligible, though. Under Texas Tax Code 23.51(2) the acreage that can qualify on the bee use runs from five acres to twenty, so anything above twenty needs an agricultural use of its own. The homesite comes out before that acreage is counted. That's the residential carve-out attached to the homestead exemption under Texas Tax Code 11.13, and the district bars acreage carrying that exemption from counting toward agricultural history or agricultural appraisal. The BEES section of the ag manual outlines the agricultural productivity value for land used for beekeeping, and it's the same as improved or native pasture.

That homesite runs a quarter acre at a minimum where a residence sits on the plat, measured off a drone photo. Only that acreage comes out. The rest of the tract can still carry ag, which is why a homestead exemption doesn't put a place out of reach on its own. Run that subtraction first. A five-acre tract with a residence on it leaves 4.75 eligible acres, which is under the statutory minimum, so it takes about 5.25 acres to put a full five into beekeeping. An owner can ask the district office to enlarge the homesite, and on a small tract that's worth thinking twice about, because every acre added to it comes out of the eligible count. Clearing the five-acre floor isn't the same as clearing the primary-use test. Lee County CAD publishes that small acreage with a home built upon the tract is primarily residential in nature, with agricultural use secondary, and this valuation needs agriculture to be the primary use. The guidelines also say each tract gets considered on its own merits, so ask the district office how yours reads before you spend against these numbers.

Land inside an incorporated city is a separate question. Texas Tax Code 23.56 can shut a city tract out of this valuation unless it clears one of a short list of statutory exceptions. The one that turns on this page's own route is five preceding years devoted principally to agricultural use, continuously, which is a harder test than the five of seven the rest of this page runs on. If your place sits inside a city's limits, take that to Lee County CAD before you go further.

The hives have to be maintained and kept alive, and they have to stand on the land at least seven months out of twelve. When you're working with us our hives stay put for the full year, and a colony lost over winter is our responsibility to replace. Lee County CAD writes its requirement in mainframe hives. A standard 10-frame Langstroth counts as one, and it's what we place on your land.

On page 6 the ag manual says the district may require copies of the apiary's registration, a certificate of inspection, branding information, and export, import or intra-state permits where the Texas Apiary Inspection Service requires a permit for the type of hive movement encountered. Our TAIS beekeeper registration stays current regardless, and when we manage your apiary, the location gets registered as one of our worked locations. We provide you with documentation that your land is registered with TAIS so you have that additional supporting evidence.

Lee County CAD's general guidelines also require the land to be producing an agricultural product intended for sale, and the district can ask for documentation behind it, including an IRS Schedule F and evidence the work isn't a hobby under Section 183 of the IRS regulations. Every visit we make is logged in the Outlaw Hideout, and it lets you generate reports that support your ag production claim. All the honey your land produces stays with you. If you can't sell it, or would rather not take it on, we'll make you an offer for the harvest. We also offer a packaging service that handles the bottling and labeling, so all you have to do is sell.

Lee County is post oak savannah on sandy loam, and it grows its own set of honey plants. Which ones you have, and what months they run, decide whether a yard carries itself or needs feeding, so the survey comes first and the equipment follows. Around here that means mesquite, horsemint, bluebonnets through the spring, and yaupon under the post oaks. We don't plant any of it. The survey is there to find what your land already carries, so the hives go where it counts. There's more on what else blooms around here.

Changing the use of the land triggers a rollback. Texas Tax Code 23.55 imposes an additional tax across as many as three preceding tax years, equal to the difference between what was paid and the tax at market value. No interest runs on that amount. Where only part of a parcel changes use, the additional tax reaches only that part. Coming up short on the hive count is a different thing. It can cost you the valuation for that year, but the land is still in agriculture. A change of use is the chief appraiser's determination to make under 23.55, and it comes with a notice and a right to protest it. The tax code doesn't define the term in general, and it shelters a cessation of agricultural use only in named cases, a drought declared by the governor under 23.522 among them. A hard winter isn't on that list, so take it to the district office rather than assume.

There's a duty on the way out too. If the land stops qualifying, or you move it to a different agricultural category, Texas Tax Code 23.54 puts the burden on you to tell the appraisal office in writing, before May 1. Where eligibility has ended and you skip that notice, the chief appraiser adds the gap between the agricultural value and the market value to the appraisal roll as property that escaped taxation, reaching back as far as five years. The penalty is separate from that, 10 percent of the tax you didn't pay for each year the appraisal was wrongly allowed. Neither one is the rollback.

Lee County CAD also publishes what happens if the land goes quiet. Where the county is declared an agricultural disaster area, the guidelines say a pasture may lie out of production for drought and excessive heat and keep the qualification. The sentence after it says a pasture out of production longer than a year may lose the qualification, and the manual doesn't settle whether that limit reaches outside a declared disaster. Both are written about pasture rather than bees, so ask the district office how it reads on a bee tract before you rely on it.