Paso Robles has been rooting for the bees for 11 years straight. This year the Downtown Paso Robles Main Street Association keeps the tradition buzzing.
“Bees is the one that creates all of these things that we have. One of every three bites of food is pollination and results of bees doing pollination,” Main Street Association Chairperson Jodi Tellier said.
On Oct. 19, the association will host the annual Golden Oak Honey and Pumpkin Festival in Downtown City Park from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. What was originally a car show and later a harvest festival morphed into an educational, delectable public gathering on all things honey and the importance of bees.
“There are 200,000, approximately, different kinds of bees, and lot of people just look at the honeybees that aren’t even native to North America,” Tellier said. “We have a lot of native bees, and native bees don’t sting. … They just want a place to live and do their thing.”
Tellier is a San Luis Obispo beekeeper who volunteers with the Main Street Association. She isn’t alone in this sweet pursuit. Thanks to its perennially returning stream of backyard beekeepers and honey vendors, the Honey and Pumpkin Festival sprouted a beekeeping club. Roughly 60 members make up the group called the Central Coast Beekeepers Alliance, which was founded by afficionados Rob Kimmell and Anna Rempel.
Visitors of the upcoming honey festival can expect a bounty of honey, according to Tellier.
“This is going to be a good year because we’ve had plenty of rain, and also the varieties of honey people have gotten,” Tellier said. “Where they’ve gotten access to putting the bees in different areas, like, you know, they’re really just used for pollination.”
Water is crucial for bees. Tellier explained that beekeepers ensure that the bees have their own water source so that they don’t dip into the water supply of other animals and drown in the troughs.
“In North County, they’re kind of suffering right now. They have to be supplemented with water,” she said.
A cut of the money from visiting vendors’ honey sales goes to the association, which the group uses for advertising and procuring permits. Paso Robles Waste and Recycle donates to the cleanup process.
In its debut year, the honey festival ran into a sticky situation—the bees were missing. Exeter-based Matt’s Bees saved the day. The eponymous Matt had his sister dropped off a truckload of honey, which he usually sells at farmers markets. The delivery made up the festival’s supply of honey to sell.
Matt’s Bees delivers for Tellier’s tastebuds, too. Her favorite honey is the orange variety that she consumes by the spoonful. She has a tough time finding it locally because of the sparse availability of orange groves, so Tellier gets her share from Matt’s Bees.
“Especially when all this sickness was going on, I was consuming two or three spoonfuls a day, and I would say it kind of keeps me healthy,” she said.
Others embraced the festival too. Cal Poly beekeeping instructor Jeremy Rose acts as a mentor and offers educational talks at the festival.
“He also helps us with getting queens [bees] because lots of times we have to replace the queens,” Tellier said. “It’s very hard to transport a queen because they’re not made here. They’re usually made in another part of the country.”
Roughly three years ago, the honey festival got a pumpkin pairing. The Main Street Association tried to get pumpkin growers to bring their pumpkins to the park, but the farmers’ harvest schedules prevented that from happening. The backup solution: host a pumpkin pie-eating contest.
“All over the United States, you’ll find berry pie, you’ll find cream pie, as far as eating contests, but you’ll never find a pumpkin pie eating contest,” Tellier said.
The pies arrive from Costco, and the contestants arrive from all over the county. In youth and adult categories, they must demolish slices of pie—topped with whipped cream—in record time. The winner gets to take home a whole pie and a pumpkin.
“You never know. You would think size or whatever,” Tellier said. “But it has nothing to do with that. … Sometimes the smallest girl or boy win it.” Δ
Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal is ready to beat the fall heat with pumpkin pie and honey. Send Cool Whip to brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 10-20, 2024.
