Portage County, WI Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

Section 7.1.3(4)(b) of the Portage County Code, governing the Exclusive Agricultural District (A1), opens its permitted-uses list with 'Beekeeping,' item 1, followed by cranberry production, dairy farming, feedlots, poultry raising, livestock raising and more than a dozen other agricultural activities. The same district's intent clause, Section 7.1.3(4)(a), states the goal of preserving 'productive farmlands' and maintaining 'agriculture as a major component of the County's economy,' the policy basis for treating beekeeping as a by-right agricultural use rather than a use requiring a conditional-use permit or Board of Adjustment approval.

Because A1 and the county's other agricultural districts, including the General Agricultural District (A4), cover most of the towns that have adopted county zoning outside the incorporated cities and villages, a working apiary is permitted outright on agriculturally zoned land in unincorporated Portage County. The code does not carry the same entry in the Single Family Residence District's (R2) permitted-uses list under Section 7.1.2(1)(b), which enumerates single-family dwellings, municipal buildings, parks, accessory buildings and home occupations but does not name beekeeping, so keeping bees on residentially zoned land in the towns falls outside the enumerated uses rather than being separately permitted. Beekeepers on residential parcels should confirm their lot's zoning district with the Planning and Zoning Department before placing hives.