Hernando County, FL Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

Keeping honey bees is legal across Hernando County and treated as agriculture, a natural fit for the county's rural interior around Brooksville. 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 set rules on where registered colonies may be placed, superseding any county ordinance. Every beekeeper must register colonies annually with FDACS and submit to state apiary inspection for disease and Africanized bees. Because placement of registered, inspected colonies is a state matter, the county cannot ban hives, though Spring Hill deed restrictions and HOAs may still restrict them by contract.