Rocklin, CA Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

Rocklin Municipal Code § 6.44.070 sets the hive cap in one sentence: no person shall keep more than two hives of bees. Section 6.44.080 then imposes a placement rule that is far stricter than the fowl and rabbit setbacks nearby in the same chapter: bees must be kept at least five hundred feet from any building or structure in which persons or animals normally live or are kept. Five hundred feet is roughly the length of one and a half football fields, so on a typical Rocklin residential lot the required buffer reaches well past the property line onto neighboring parcels, meaning compliant hive placement is only realistic on larger or more isolated properties.

The only relief valve is § 6.44.090, which exempts the persons listed in the wild-animal chapter's § 6.40.020, licensed researchers, teaching institutions, veterinarians, state-licensed game or breeding operations, nonprofit zoos, commercial animal sellers, and circus or entertainment operators, from the chapter's restrictions; a backyard hobbyist does not fall into any of those categories. Beekeeping sits in Chapter 6.44, MISCELLANEOUS ANIMALS, alongside the fowl and rabbit rules, and like those provisions it carries no chapter-specific penalty clause, so enforcement runs through the citywide mechanisms in Title 1.