As honey bee populations across the country continue to decline, San Marcos has joined a growing national initiative to protect them and other pollinators with a Bee City USA designation. 

San Marcos City Council voted unanimously on March 4 to join Bee City USA, a program that helps municipalities support bees and other pollinators through habitat creation, reduced pesticide use and public education. With this move, San Marcos joins nearby Bee Cities like Austin, Round Rock and Tyler. 

“To be a Bee City means we’re committing to reducing our pesticide use, planting more natives and educating the public about how to support pollinators,” Amy Thomaides, San Marcos’ community initiatives manager said. 

To receive the designation, the city passed a resolution, submitted an application and formed a small committee of staff and residents to oversee annual requirements. The city is also committed to developing an Integrated Pest Management Plan and promoting pollinator conservation through outreach events and landscaping projects. 

The move comes at a time when beekeepers nationwide are facing record-setting losses. According to an April 3 report from Project Apis m., more than 1.6 million honey bee colonies were lost between June 2024 and March 2025, with commercial operations seeing an average 62% loss – figures the organization called “the largest ever recorded in the U.S.” 

In 2023, Texas honey production dropped to under $12 million, down from more than $27 million the year before, due to colony losses and poor weather conditions  

For Kate Gavancho, local beekeeper and owner of PachaMama Bees, those numbers reinforce what she’s seen in her own hives. 

“If honey bees aren’t doing well, certainly the other pollinators… that don’t have someone looking after them, well, certainly… they’re going to not be doing well either, so it is a ripple effect,” Gavancho said. 

Texas leads the nation in bee farms, with 8,939 operations managing honey bee colonies as of 2022. This statewide presence extends to Hays County, where small-scale apiaries, bee leasing operations and hives in San Marcos all depend on healthy bee populations 

Thomaides said the city is focusing on planting native species, especially in downtown areas, and is working with local organizations like the Discovery Center to expand these efforts. The city will also begin installing Bee City and pollinator signage to mark San Marcos’ demonstration pollinator gardens. The efforts will begin this summer. 

“We just changed all of downtown to native plantings,” Thomaides said. “We’re going to start adding more native plantings in our current public planted areas.” 

Thomaides said the city is also shifting away from broad-spectrum herbicides in favor of targeted applications on invasive species like Johnson grass and Bermuda grass. 

Gavancho said residents should also refrain from using pesticides like roach spray on a colony of bees that may be growing in their home, as it would be an “unnecessary loss of life.” Instead, residents should call a local beekeeper to help them. 

“Also, the residents living there would still have an issue, because… [bees] leave wax and honey, and then you’ll have rats and other species like cockroaches going for that resource,” Gavancho said.   

Texas State’s student-led beekeeping club, Bobcat Buzz, has maintained a hive at Freeman Ranch for over a decade, producing honey and beeswax products while promoting pollinator conservation. With San Marcos’ Bee City USA designation, Bobcat Buzz President Christopher Miranda hopes to expand these efforts and engage more with the community. 

“We sold out [the honey] within 21 minutes,”  Miranda said, recalling the group’s most recent harvest in fall. 

Miranda said the Bee City designation is a step toward preserving the conditions that make those harvests possible. Less pesticide exposure, he said, means stronger bee colonies and safer honey production. 

“It gives me a better opportunity to actually get more bees and save more bees, which will allow us to sell more honey to the community,” Miranda said. 

Gavancho said her business has seen increased interest in pollinator support, particularly in Hays County. PachaMama Bees’ most common service request in the area is for bee leasing, where landowners lease hives to maintain their property’s agricultural designation and qualify for a tax break. 

“In Hays County, there is some tax benefit to having an agricultural activity on your property… people like to lease bees from us,” Gavancho said. “It’s a little bit less work for them, and they’re excited about having pollinators and being part of that support.” 

Still, the steep colony losses haven’t spared her team as PachaMama mainly leases honey bees.  

“We’ve just had to work harder,” Gavancho said. “Catch up more, spend more money, more time.” 

City departments will continue expanding public native plantings and push education campaigns through spring and summer, with activities tied to World Bee Day on May 20 and new signage rolling out at public pollinator zones. 

For residents and students who want to help, Thomaides encourages private property owners to join the Certified Habitat Stewardship Program and all residents to plant native wildflowers like Zinnias. 

Gavancho said students can support pollinators by making environmentally conscious choices, such as avoiding fast fashion, recycling carefully and opting to walk or bike instead of driving, as well as avoiding synthetic insecticides like roach spray. 

“If you want to protect pollinators or see environmental change, it starts with you; we can’t depend on anyone else,” Gavancho said. “There’s not one Bee City designation that’s going to solve all the problems, but it is a start.”