June 7, 2023 Chapter Meeting

Born into a cattle family with a childhood split between the urban life in Dallas and running wild in the Texas Hill Country, Ryan Giesecke grew up and enrolled in  Master Beekeeper training & Master Naturalist training, and then continued his education with an expansive personal exploration of ecological topics. All of these experiences are reflected in this effort to organize his thoughts on human transport of species and associated impacts, to examine conservation efforts and wildlife management through the lens of agricultural knowledge, and to understand humanity’s role in food webs and our place in nature. This is an ecology talk, based in bees but ultimately asking the question “where do we all belong?”

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f1Chx42sTb64qJBdMwtQAw

Schedule:

• 6:30 Camera Roll and Socializing
• 7:00 Introduction and Announcements
• 7:20 Featured Presentation
• 8:45 Adjournment

Join us at Dallas College Brookhaven Campus, Building H, Room 125. Campus map. Or participate via Zoom — register here. If you are attending in person, you don’t need to register for Zoom.

Supplemental Activity:  Tour of a Dallas Urban Homestead Project, Saturday, June 10th at 10 a.m. 

Please join Ryan for a tour of G-Bar Naturals, his family’s home, agricultural project, and a space for urban nature. Alongside their bee hives, they raise free-range chickens and ducks with a focus on food production, as well as registered Kune Kune pigs, all overseen by his family and their livestock guardian dogs. They make a distinct effort to balance space between domesticates and such unmanaged flora and fauna as life in the middle of Dallas provides. Wild neighbors with whom they’ve achieved a tentative balance include the local coyote population, hawks and owls, aquatic predators, and the ever-present privet. A branch of Ash Creek runs through the property, dammed twice to create ponds where ducks dodge turtles and occasional otters, and periodic beavers munch on privet and tallow. Here you will find neither backyard garden nor native restoration project, but nature as it exists on a small urban farm of sorts.

The tour will be Saturday, June 10 at 10:00 a.m. at Ryan’s property in East Dallas.  Please sign up at volunteersignup.org/WD7WC

Information about the location and access will be provided to those who register.

Our Speaker

Ryan owns and operates G-Bar Naturals, an urban homestead project located in East Dallas. From there he periodically offers homegrown products and learning opportunities, as well as performing bee-friendly removals of honey bees and bumblebees as “Honey Bee Relocation Services.” Ryan loves to talk bees, and has done so all across the state. He is president of Texas Association of Professional Bee Removers, past president of Trinity Valley Beekeepers Association in Dallas, past president of Metro Beekeepers Association in Fort Worth, and is a Texas Master Beekeeper. He has taught classes on bees at area colleges, and is currently at work on a first book about bees.