Forsyth County, GA Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

Forsyth County treats beekeeping as agricultural production, not a special land use. 1, 'Uses Permitted in Agricultural Districts,' marks Apiaries with a plain 'P' for both A1 (Agricultural District) and AG-RES (Agricultural Residential District), the county's two agricultural zoning classifications that dominate the unincorporated landscape between subdivisions. A 'P' rating means the use is permitted outright, with no conditional use permit, site plan review, or Board of Commissioners hearing required before a landowner sets up hives. Chapter 3's definitions article reinforces this by defining 'Agriculture' as 'the commercial cultivation or growth from or on the land of horticultural, floricultural, forestry, dairy, livestock, poultry, and apiarian products,' folding beekeeping directly into the same protected use category as row crops and dairy operations.

2's front, side and rear setback standards. 12 states that 'any use not specifically permitted in a zoning district as provided by this Code shall be prohibited in that district,' so a beekeeper on land zoned for a non-agricultural district needs to check that district's own use table before assuming the same by-right treatment applies. Cumming, the county's only incorporated city, is governed separately and is not covered by this county-level table.