 <p>For using MySQL with .NET I'd recommend you <a href="http://www.vbmysql.com/articles/vbnet-mysql-tutorials" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this tutorial</a>, and for your problem specially part 6, about reading the data with a MySQLDataReader.</p> <p>An (almost working) sample by copy&amp;paste from there with some changes:</p> <pre><code>Private Sub getData() Dim conn As New MySqlConnection Dim myCommand As New MySqlCommand Dim myReader As MySqlDataReader Dim SQL As String SQL = "SELECT LabelContent FROM myTable" conn.ConnectionString = myConnString ' your connection string here' Try conn.Open() Try myCommand.Connection = conn myCommand.CommandText = SQL myReader = myCommand.ExecuteReader ' loop through all records' While myReader.Read Dim myLabelValue as String myLabelValue = myReader.GetString(myReader.GetOrdinal("LabelContent")) ' ... do something with the value, e.g. assign to label ' End While Catch myerror As MySqlException MsgBox("There was an error reading from the database: " &amp; myerror.Message) End Try Catch myerror As MySqlException MessageBox.Show("Error connecting to the database: " &amp; myerror.Message) Finally If conn.State &lt;&gt; ConnectionState.Closed Then conn.Close() End Try End Sub </code></pre>