Bay County, FL Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

Keeping honey bees is legal across Bay County and treated as agriculture under Florida law. The state preempts local regulation: Section 586.10 gives the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services exclusive authority to regulate, inspect, and permit managed honeybee colonies and to adopt rules on where registered colonies may be placed, superseding any county or municipal ordinance. Every beekeeper must register colonies annually with FDACS and submit to state apiary inspection for disease and Africanized bees; the department, not Bay County, sets best-management practices and minimum-lot standards. Because placement of registered, inspected colonies is a state matter, the county cannot ban hives, though HOA and deed covenants may still restrict them on private lots by contract.