Indeed, and I suppose spelling bees makes sense for any language that is not written exactly as it is pronounced, French being one of them. From what I've read so far, Esperanto only has a single way to write every sound it uses, so it would be much less challenging.

Yes. Here in Brazil there are some competitions. It's a challenge indeed (portuguese), but not such a big one.

In Esperanto there is a 1-1 relationship between letters and sounds by design, so a spelling bee wouldn't be a challenge.