Many ‘Buzz on in’ to enjoy Palisade Bee Festival April 12

Palisade’s theme to “Buzz on in” really brought the people locally and afar to fill the streets this year as the town’s population exploded on Saturday, April 12.

 No official count, but individuals, families and groups came from Fruita, Junction, Denver, Delta, Montrose, and even Arizona for the 6^th Annual International Honeybee Festival (PIHF).

Some came for the honeybees; some came for the spelling bee; others came for the vendors’ wares while others came early to “Run for the bees,” but everyone seemed to enjoy the beautiful spring day fun.

“This year’s festival is bigger than ever,” said Chamber of Commerce Director Juliann Adams. “We have 55 booths. Last year we had 48.”

The Bee Festive Committee had a welcoming program on Friday night at the Blue Pig Gallery, for the artists, vendors, the speakers and fans of the annual event.

On Saturday a new event to the PIHF started before the downtown activities.

The Children’s Nature Center hosted the 1^st annual Zoo’BEE’lievers 5K “Run for the bees and BEE ZONE” race south of Main Street and 3^rd Street.

Again, the runners were a mixture young and old from the Grand Valley, plus a few came from Loma, Silt, Montrose, Rifle and Wolcott.

This was the first 5K for a few of them, and others were veteran runners, like Sharon Heller, a Palisade resident who measured and marked the Bee Run for this race.

“It was a good group of runners for this Riverbend Park course,” said Sharon about the course that took the runners through dirt and concrete, going down a gentle hill through a Palisade residential street into the Park, along the Colorado River and then back up the same hill to the finish line.

“It was not too much of a challenge,” Sharon said, and she should know. She has run in marathons around the world. Her favorite race was in Dubai, but last Saturday, Sharon was on her bicycle watching others following the marked path and running a good race.

The two first winners were from Grand Junction: Esmeralda Martinez with 19:16; and Joe Schoh, 19:26.

The fact that Martinez ran the fastest time with her dog on a lease and that Schoh ran in his handmade sandals was admired by the other runners and race fans.

The early event started at 10 a.m. before the booths and other scheduled events opened, but all the runners were done by 11:45, giving them time to get their awards and drawing prizes before going to the festival.

The closed streets were busy with vendors, shoppers, exhibits, and presentations. There was something for everyone interested in honeybees, bee products, and anything beelightful.

 The children’s costume judging seemed just as creative as the un-judged adult costumes that appeared in the crowd. Fruita resident Kimberlee Boulden, won for best costume

Twenty-four third graders came prepared for the traditional Spelling BEE contest, but nine-year-old David Wooten was “B” best speller.

Ray Bean, of the Palisade Insectary, was the expert speaker this year. He spoke in the library about the other insects, which are almost as important as the festival star, the honeybee.

There was plenty of information about the honored bee. The Western Slope Beekeepers Association had a booth. Several individual members of the WSBA had their business booths close by. All were educating youth and adults about the care and crisis of the vital honeybee.

Bella’s Bees, a Fruita honeybee business, is here every year since the event began, six years ago.

Maybe it was the fine spring weather, or the sweetness of the honey being given in sticks or sold in jars, or maybe it was the importance of the honeybee and other insects of agricultural significance that made this 6^th event a crowd-pleaser.

Next year might be bigger.

Old story, but still noteworthy --Bees inside The Red Barn Fruit Stand

The Red Barn Farm and Gardens business west of Palisade is closed for the season now.

            As of last weekend Tarrin George Miller, the owner and manager, had used social media to inform customers that Friday was the final day to purchase the last of her produce, pumpkins and gourds.

            Her shelves, bins, and boxes were almost empty with her bounty of honey, jams, cheeses and other items already gone.

            Her day was steady as a few regulars and several tourists stopped to purchase the best of the remaining produce.

At closing time Tarrin looked around at her depleted inventory. The shelves were not as completely bare as they were a few years ago, but it would be short work the next day to pack up before her final job winterizing the Red Barn.

“I’ll come back late Saturday afternoon to shut down the bee hive,” she decided.

A honeybee hive in the middle of a business place?

Why not? The fruit and produce stand is surrounded by orchards and alfalfa fields where bees are working, pollinating the plants and crops that keeps the cycle of agriculture going.

Two years ago her finance Levi built the small acrylic and wooden hive and attached a long acrylic tube along the interior wall to an outlet hole so the honeybees could come and go about their business in the surrounding area, but still make honey in the see-through hive.

Tarrin and her dad Frank George considered it a good idea and purchased 30,000 Italian honeybees from Chad Ragsdale, a Grand Valley businessman who deals with bees and hives across the Western U.S.A.

When Tarrin and Levi married they took over the Red Barn Farm while Frank moved to Ball Fruit in the Vine Lands area in Palisade. Levi then built a smaller model of the “see through” beehive for that business place last year.

In the summer few people fail to notice the working bee hive. It is placed atop the highest shelves. The honeycombs take up the majority of space, making a fascinating sideways layering effect. There are no pullout platforms for the bees to attach their combs, just building each layer attached to another layer.

The bees are contained at all times. During the fall with their coming, going, and working, the buzzing is not loud enough to notice in the fruit stand.

“In the summer we have up to 8,000 bees working the hive, and it can get quite noisy. But now close to cold weather there are only about 4000 still going in and out.” Tarrin explains. Other bees are roaming closer to other hives out on the land.

Regular customers who come all summer have no qualms about the beehive now after two years. Amanda Delgado brought her three boys to the Red Barn for apples and pumpkins. Like typical boys, they scampered about,  in, around, through and out the building never looking up for a glimpse of the bees above their heads.

While their mother and Tarrin discussed apples and recipes, the boys checked every bin and box for what was available.

Cy, the oldest at 12, asked anxiously if Tarrin still had some peppers. His smile faded when she said, “No, I sold all my peppers yesterday, but you can have a honey stick.”

“Remember the honeybees?” She pointed to the acrylic box. All three looked up as Tarrin said, “They are still here. Each kid gets a free honey stick, if you want one.”

Ten year-old Amias and nine-year-old Josiah were not interested in the bees. They went back to picking out the right pumpkin while Cy turned away to look in the boxes under the produce bins. The women’s talk changed from apples to honey.

Tarrin apologized about not having any honey, but she explained, “We go through a lot in the spring when the bees first start producing. Any one who comes in, they want that raw honey.”

 They sell most of it in the big gallon jars, and it is the first item to sell out, she said.

 Cy comes running across the room with a red bell pepper as big and bright as his smile. “I found one. I found one.”

Everyone one is now happy with their apples, pumpkins and decorative gourds. As Mom Amanda pays for the products, she tells Tarrin that they will see her again next spring when the Red Barn reopens.

Tarrin is too busy to close the hive on her last business day, but she doesn’t mind cleaning out the hive. She has done this for three years now.

Her husband Levi might be home from his oil field job on Saturday, and he will help pack up unsold jars and toss out the perishable crops that they can’t store or can over the winter.

After they vacuum out the dead bees and cover the hive to make it warmer through the winter, they will look over the empty shelves, bins and start making plans for next season.

The honeybees will be a part of their business because Tarrin will tell anyone who stops and visits, “We are just the education department of the bees. We tell about how bees are important to our produce.”

Ask any farmer, they will tell you, without bees we would not have the apples, pumpkins, almost all crops.

All of that is true, and without the farmers’ crops, we might not have The Red Barn and other fruit and produce stands here in the Valley.