France Beekeeping Laws and Regulations (2026 Guide)

A beekeeper checking honey harvest in Provence, France — Photo by Lubman04, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Every beekeeper in France, from a single backyard hive to a professional operation running hundreds of colonies, must declare their bees to the government once a year — and the declaration window is narrow: September 1 through December 31 only. Miss it, and the consequences go beyond a missed formality: a beekeeper who skips this annual declaration can lose eligibility for CAP beekeeping subsidies and for health indemnities if their colonies are later hit by a notifiable disease or pest.

This guide covers France’s mandatory annual hive declaration under Article L221-1 of the Rural Code, the September-to-December declaration window, how to declare through the TéléRuchers online system or by paper form, and the real consequences of not declaring.

Key Takeaways

Every beekeeper in France must declare their hives annually, regardless of whether they’re an amateur with one hive or a professional with hundreds — ownership alone triggers the requirement.
The annual declaration window runs from September 1 to December 31 each year.
Declarations are made online through the TéléRuchers teleservice, or by paper using Cerfa form 13995*04 mailed directly to the DGAL.
Beekeepers must keep their declaration receipt for 5 years as part of their livestock register.
Failing to declare can mean fines, loss of eligibility for CAP apiculture subsidies, and ineligibility for health indemnities if colonies are later affected by a disease like foulbrood or a pest like the Asian hornet.

Mandatory Annual Hive Declaration
The September-to-December Declaration Window
How to Declare: TéléRuchers and the Paper Alternative
Migratory Beekeeping and Location History
Consequences of Not Declaring
Frequently Asked Questions

Mandatory Annual Hive Declaration

Under Article L221-1 of France’s Rural and Maritime Fishing Code (Code rural et de la pêche maritime), anyone keeping bee colonies in France must declare them to the administration. The law is deliberately broad: it doesn’t matter whether the beekeeper is a hobbyist with a single hive in their backyard or a professional operation managing several hundred colonies — the notion of “professional” status doesn’t factor into the obligation at all. Ownership of even one colony is enough to trigger the annual declaration requirement. This declaration serves a genuine public function beyond simple record-keeping: it builds a national picture of France’s honey bee population and supports the country’s ability to manage bee health issues, including tracking and responding to disease outbreaks and invasive pest threats. The data collected also feeds directly into France’s broader agricultural statistics on the health of its beekeeping sector, which has faced real, well-documented colony-loss pressures over the past two decades – accurate annual declaration figures give French authorities a genuine, current picture of colony numbers rather than relying on outdated estimates or industry surveys alone.

The September-to-December Declaration Window

France runs its annual hive declaration during a fixed window: September 1 through December 31 each year. During this period, beekeepers report the number of colonies they currently hold and the location of each of their apiary sites. This isn’t a rolling or anytime obligation — it’s tied to this specific annual window, which beekeepers need to actively track rather than assume they can complete at any convenient point during the year. The timing is deliberate: by the start of September, most of the active beekeeping season’s colony splits, swarms, and losses have already played out, giving a more accurate year-end snapshot of actual colony counts than a declaration taken earlier in the season would provide.

How to Declare: TéléRuchers and the Paper Alternative

The primary declaration method is online, through the TéléRuchers teleservice, accessible via France’s official agricultural procedures portal. Beekeepers enter their identity information, their apiary locations, and their colony counts; the system immediately issues a receipt once the declaration is submitted. That receipt needs to be kept for 5 years as part of the beekeeper’s livestock register (registre d’élevage) — a real, ongoing documentation obligation beyond just the act of declaring itself. Beekeepers who prefer not to declare online can instead use the paper Cerfa form 13995*04, completing and signing it before mailing it to the DGAL (Direction Générale de l’Alimentation) at its dedicated hive-declaration address in Paris. Beekeepers who already hold a NAPI (a national apiary identification number) include it as part of the declaration to keep their records tied to their existing registration.

Migratory Beekeeping and Location History

France has a long tradition of transhumance beekeeping — moving hives seasonally to follow blooming crops and forage across different regions — and the annual declaration accounts for this directly. A beekeeper practicing transhumance needs to be ready to provide the history of where their apiaries were located over the course of the year, not just their current site, since colony movement is directly relevant to disease traceability. In practice, this means migratory beekeepers benefit from keeping their own running log of moves throughout the year, so that when the September declaration window opens, compiling an accurate location history doesn’t require reconstructing months of movement from memory.

Consequences of Not Declaring

France attaches real, practical consequences to skipping the annual hive declaration, extending well beyond a simple compliance fine. A beekeeper who fails to declare can face financial penalties directly, but the more significant long-term consequences are the ones tied to other government programs: undeclared beekeepers become ineligible for CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) apiculture aid, the EU-backed subsidy support available to French beekeepers, and they also lose eligibility for health indemnities if their colonies are later struck by a notifiable disease such as American or European foulbrood, or affected by the Asian hornet (Vespa velutina), an invasive predator first detected in France in 2004 and that has since spread across most of the country, causing serious, well-documented damage to French apiaries by preying directly on foraging honey bees at the hive entrance. In effect, the declaration functions as a prerequisite for the safety net France provides its beekeeping sector — skip it, and that safety net isn’t there when a beekeeper actually needs it.