Porterville, CA Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

Porterville Municipal Code section 18-28 makes it unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to bring, have, keep or maintain any swarm, colony or colonies of honeybees anywhere within the city from sunrise to sunset in any year. The section goes further than a simple prohibition: it declares any honeybee swarm or colony kept in the city to be a public nuisance, and it makes it the affirmative duty of city police officers to abate that nuisance, either by destroying the bees or by removing them, or causing them to be removed, from the city.

The only carve-out is for agricultural pollination: placement of bees on property that has crops dependent on bee pollination for crop production is exempt, but the exemption is capped at the number of bees reasonably necessary to pollinate the crops on that specific property, and only for the period pollination is actually required. Outside that narrow agricultural window, there is no residential beekeeping permit, registration or hive-setback process in Porterville the way many California cities allow; the code criminalizes urban apiaries and empowers police to physically remove or kill the hive rather than fine the keeper first and let them cure the violation.