South Bend, IN Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

The Common Council's findings at Sec. 5-8 declare that honey bees can be kept in populated areas without nuisance if properly located and managed, and that beekeeping benefits the city's ecosystem through pollination and honey production. Sec. 5-9 defines an apiary as the assembly of one or more hives at a single location and requires a flyway barrier, meaning fencing or dense hedging that shields the direction bees fly when leaving the hive. Sec. 5-10 sets the operating rules: no hive may exceed 17 cubic feet in volume; on a fenced lot, hives must sit at least 4 feet from the property line measured from the hive's center; on an unfenced lot, the same 4-foot setback applies plus a flyway barrier installed no more than 4 feet in front of the hive entrance; no hive may sit closer than 10 feet to a public sidewalk under any circumstance; and colonies kept on flat roofs are exempt from both the setback and flyway barrier rules.

A fresh water supply must be kept available at all hives to keep bees from congregating at pools or pet bowls, and beekeepers must otherwise follow apiary practices recommended by the Indiana DNR's Apiary Inspector and Purdue University's Department of Entomology. 11.