Springfield, IL Animal Ordinances: Beekeeping (2026)

Sec. 26 defines honey bees as apis mellifera and bars anyone from keeping a colony in the city without meeting a specific set of conditions. Every hive must be registered with the Illinois Department of Agriculture as state law requires, kept in movable-frame or similar hives, and managed with adequate techniques like requeening so bees don't sting unprovoked ten feet or more from the hive. Lots smaller than 10,000 square feet are capped at four hives. Hives generally can't sit within five feet of any property line, public street, sidewalk, or alley; that setback is waived only if the hive sits behind a solid or filled-slat chain-link fence or hedge four feet high, built within three feet of the hive, extending at least four feet beyond it in every direction or fully enclosing it.

Colonies also have to comply with the Illinois Bees and Apiaries Act. Any nest or colony that isn't maintained under these terms, or any other stinging-insect nest that threatens people on a public street, sidewalk, park, or a privately owned space open to the public, is declared a public nuisance under subsection (b)(3); an unmanaged wild bee nest that no one has cultivated or harvested isn't a violation unless it poses that same stinging threat.