Join bee fanatics and beer lovers alike at First Magnitude Brewing Company for an afternoon of beers, honey tasting and honeybee education.
The Gainesville Area Beekeepers and the Florida State Beekeepers will host Bees and Brews at First Magnitude, a brewery located downtown at 1220 SE Veitch St., Friday at 4 p.m. The event will raise money for the new UF Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab, which has been under construction since the beginning of this month. The lab will be located at the UF Department of Entomology and Nematology on the southwest part of campus.
According to the UF Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab website, the team currently works on improving the health of bee pollinators and finding ways to gain more knowledge about bees at a local, national and international level.
“It’s really just a fun way to support science,” Ben Guzman, the event coordinator at First Magnitude, said.
The event will include a live honey bee demonstration colony, honey tasting and face painting. This event is family-friendly. Parents are encouraged to bring their children to learn about honey bees and the important role they have in the world.
There is no entrance fee. There is only a suggested voluntary donation that will go directly to fundraising for the lab. Attendees will receive discounts on First Magnitude’s various beers after donating.
“The decline of the honey bee population nationwide has been news for a long time now,” Guzman said, “and we are interested in supporting UF’s commitment to helping to solve that problem through research.”
He said representatives from Gainesville Area Beekeepers, Florida State Beekeepers and the UF Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab will be present at the event to provide information about honeybees, and explain what the new lab will be working on.
“If you want to support research-based solutions to real world problems, I would say that it’s a good event to come to,” he said.
