Celebrate bees and honey Saturday at Woodland festival

Woodland will be abuzz Saturday, May 6, as the California Honey Festival returns to its downtown streets.

The Honey Festival exists to promote honey products and educate about bees and other pollinators’ crucial role in the ecosystem and the local economy.

Food vendors, music, art and informational booths plus many bee-related product vendors will fill Woodland's Main Street from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

The cooking demonstration stage will feature Nugget Market chefs hourly starting at 11 a.m. The educational stage will showcase presentations by experts from UC Davis and from the California Master Beekeeping Program, plus appearances by Honey Queen Selena Rampolla.

The Busy Bee Kids Zone will feature games, arts and crafts, book readings and skits. Adults, meanwhile, can relax at the beer/mead/wine garden.

Visitors will want to stop at the event's Honey Lab, located at the UC Davis booth and hosted by the Robert Mondavi Institute’s Honey & Pollination Center. Among the activities there, festival-goers can taste honeys from around the country and discover -- via the booth's giant flavor and aroma wheel -- how honey gets its flavor.

And if you want to learn how to raise your own bees, members of the Sacramento Area Beekeepers Association will have plenty of information and advice at their booth.

Once the outdoor festival ends at 5 p.m., the fun moves to the After Party at The Hive, the honey tasting room and kitchen operated by Z Specialty Food. For $20 admission, party-goers can enjoy tastings of food, mead and honey as well as music from the 8-piece soul and funk band Joy and Madness. Other food also will be sold.