At this annual event you can learn about and handle a variety of insects and spiders, meet a local beekeeper, sample some honey, learn the difference between entomology and entomophagy, and even taste a bug.

Activities: 12- 4 pm

Beekeeping 101: Learn about bees, beekeeping and taste some honey with Tim O’Neal from Borough Bees and his mobile hive.

NYSCI Bugs: Hold and learn about NYSCI’s hissing cockroaches, observe leaf cutter ants in action, and attend a feeding of the museum’s bearded dragon (he likes to eat big green bugs.)

Insect Petting Zoo: Observe and Hold a Variety of Insects and Arachnids with entomologist, Louis Sorkin.

Insect Role Play and Art with entomologist and artist, Barrett Klein: Put yourself into realistic ecological scenarios about insects and learn how to produce scientific illustrations of anatomically correct insects. Role Play will be at 12, 1, 2, & 3 pm followed be insect art creation.

Gone Viral: Become a virus, choose your host, and start your viral takeover right here in Queens. Compete with your friends in a big board game, racing each other to infect the most places in Queens. Based on the NYSCI digital comic book Transmissions: Gone Viral asks: do you have what it takes to be the biggest virus in the borough?

 Demonstration: 3pm

What Is Food? An Introduction to Edible Insects with Brooklyn Bugs: Chef Joseph Yoon from Brooklyn Bugs will give an introduction to edible insects as he explores humans’ relationship with food, and why children may be the answer to the future of food. Chef Yoon will demo and share samples of edible insect dishes featuring a wide range of insects from ants and mealworms, to crickets and grasshoppers.