Bee Rock is a rural unincorporated community in northern

San Luis Obispo County, California San Luis Obispo County (), officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a County (United States), county on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 282, ...

.(19 May 1916)
Bee Rock
''San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram'' (sample of regularly reported local news items) Bee Rock is east-northeast of Tierra Redondo Mountain, in the southeastern Santa Lucia Range. It is located on Interlake Road, between

Lake Nacimiento Lake Nacimiento is an long lake on the Nacimiento River in northern San Luis Obispo County, California. The lake contains many arms including Snake Creek and Dip Creek, nearer the dam, and the central Las Tablas and Franklin Creeks. Due to th ...

and

Lake San Antonio Lake San Antonio is a lake located primarily in southern Monterey County, California, and partially in northern San Luis Obispo County, California. The lake is formed by San Antonio Dam on the San Antonio River. The dam is 202 feet (62 m) tal ...

reservoirs. It is known for having, in the 19th century, the "largest bee-hive in the world" housed within a granite boulder.

Settlement

Although Bee Rock was inhabited earlier, the Bee Rock Ranch, in 1862, was homesteaded by a family of German cobblers, the Langenbecks. Elizabeth Langenbeck died in 1928. She and her husband had nine children. In the 1940s Fred Langenbeck still lived in Bee Rock. In 1881, the Allen family also homesteaded in Bee Rock, it has been written that Jim Hardy Allen named the area Bee Rock. In the 1940s the old Allen family Ranch in Bee Rock became the Bee Rock Lodge. Allen spearheaded the founding of the Bee Rock School in the early 1880s by organizing fund raisers attended by local families. Ernest KoneKamp, a local rancher donated an acre of land on which the school was built. The school building doubled as a community hall, and would on occasion operate as a church when a clergyman would visit the town. The area once held a public school (Bee Rock School), and also had a community hall (Bee Rock Hall) that operated for 26 years before it burned down in 1930.(10 October 1930)
Fire Destroys Bee Rock Hall
''King City Rustler''(19 January 1912)
Bee Rock District
''San Luis Obispo Tribune'' Dances were among the events held there. A small branch of the San Luis Obispo County Free Library opened in Bee Rock in 1929.News Notes of California Libraries
p. 48 (January 1930) By 1951 the old Bee Rock School was abandoned. In 1972 there was still a Bee Rock Store in operation. A new Bee Rock School was built in 1972 to serve the community. The Bee Rock Fault zone passes through the community of Bee Rock.

The bee rock

In the late 19th century the community became known for having the "largest bee-hive in the world." A granite boulder, located near the Arroyo Alcalde, riddled with fissures was inhabited by a "vast population of bees, and overflow ngwith honey", producing hundreds of pounds of honey per year.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in San Luis Obispo County, California Santa Lucia Range Unincorporated communities in California