North Texas beekeeper turns to politics to save bees, launching campaign for Texas Agriculture Commissioner

CBS News

20-05-2025

Beekeeper turns to politics to save bees, launches campaign for Texas Agriculture Commissioner
Beekeeper turns to politics to save bees, launches campaign for Texas Agriculture Commissioner
Beekeeper turns to politics to save bees, launches campaign for Texas Agriculture Commissioner
A North Texas man who has made a fortune off of honey is turning to politics to save the creatures that made him rich.
This could be the worst year in recorded history for honey bees, which are dying at an alarming rate.
It has the McKinney man who started what's become the most popular brand of honey in America now running to become the next Texas Agriculture Commissioner.
Fifteen years ago, what started as a hobby for Nate Sheets turned into an empire.
"I wound up buying a beehive and just fell in love with it," Sheets said.
Nature Nate's Honey, which was born in McKinney, now has around $4 million in annual sales.
But the 55-year-old founder said he has always valued producing a healthy product over making money when he created the first line of raw and unfiltered honey.
"So I started testing all the honey for herbicides and fungicides, the pesticides that C3, C4 sugars, which is like corn syrup. Started testing for the biotics because bees get sick, just like people do," said Sheets.
Sheets now has concerns for the health of honeybees.
"Sixty-two percent of all the bees in Texas, and really across the United States, have died over the past 12 months," said Sheets. "The bees are sick, but so are Americans. You know, almost the same statistics. Sixty percent of Americans have one chronic disease or more. We've got to change something. And I believe those are things that are directly related to what we eat."
Bee colonies like these have been vanishing at an astonishing rate across the US, according to experts.
Thirty-five percent of the world's food crops depend on bees for pollination. That concern is one of the main reasons Sheets said he wants to become the state's next agricultural commissioner. So much so that he resigned from the board of his company two weeks ago to launch a bid.
Sheets will run against incumbent Sid Miller, who did not respond to our request for comment on his opponent.
The campaign, Sheets said, will focus on a promise of cleaner food products and nature-conscious agriculture.
"It's an extension of what RFK and others are doing in Washington, D.C. right now," said Sheets. "I mean, they're focused on processed foods and food dyes and things like that."
Things that Sheets said he didn't need to become successful.
Miller told CBS News Texas he welcomes Sheets to the race.
"I welcome Nathan Sheets to the race and I appreciate his strong financial support for my reelection campaign last year," Miller said in a statement. "I am excited about the opportunity to discuss my proven record of conservative leadership, my strong working relationship with President Donald Trump, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins..."