HB519

HB519 expands the honey-production operations exempt from local regulation of honey or honeycomb production and from being treated as food service establishments under Health and Safety Code Chapter 437. It removes the former requirement to produce less than 2,500 pounds a year, along with restrictions tied to family labor, Texas-owned-and-managed hives, specified direct-to-consumer sale locations and delivery. The operation must still be a beekeeper selling or distributing honey or honeycomb the beekeeper produces; the honey must be raw, pure, unblended and unadulterated. This is not an exemption for every honey reseller or flavored honey product. Signed June 20, 2025, the law took effect September 1, 2025. Final law; official history.

The law treats extracting honey from comb as harvesting a raw agricultural commodity, and bottling extracted honey or packaging cut honeycomb as packaging that commodity without additional manufacturing or processing. It replaces the special Chapter 437 label requirements—including the statement that the facility was not inspected by the state health department—with a reference to Agriculture Code Chapter 131, Subchapter E. That subchapter restricts misleading honey labels, honey-like imagery and labeling of mixtures. It does not authorize adulterated honey or repeal every otherwise applicable food law. Honey labeling rules.