Sales are up despite the credit crunch

[Neil Bromhall]

I'm delighted that despite the credit crunch our garden advice CD-ROM, bee houses, wildlife habitat houses and wildlife surveillance camera sales are selling well.
We didn't get the review as promised by the BBC Gardeners' World magazine, so I put the rise in sales due to the blog and links to the web site. Thank you Karl for your advice and guidance. It's much appreciated.
Although I'm going to continue with developing and adding to the Complete garden plant advice CD-ROM, next year I will be doing a lot more time-lapse filming for the web site and the BBC Natural History Unit.

[sue1002]

It's very good to hear your sales are doing well Neil. I know a lot of people are complaining about the credit crunch but to be honest, apart from the increase in the gas and electric bills and the increase on food, the credit crunch hasn't made that much of a difference to us personally as we don't live on credit or have a mortgage (but still have rent to pay).

[digger]

It is good that wildlife things are still selling well, it will be interesting to see how well bees houses sell, there are problems with the honey bees and the parasite that eating them. Commercially bumble bees are used to pollinate tomatoes, this year our bumble bee nest didn't have any residents. We've noticed the hike in energy prices especially the electricity price!!

[Neil Bromhall]

I'm glad about the sales in bee houses as I'm particularly concerned about the plight of the bees. There is no doubt that the bees are on the decline.
I sell bee houses because they provide a safe habitat to breed and they are made in the UK using FSC wood.
I do make a few bob out of the sales to cover expenses but the income is not my objective whereas helping the bees is.
Dr Who mentioned the disappearance of bees in the 21st Century, as well as did the Wildlife Gardening program with Chris Beardshaw where they quote Einstein saying that with no bees the human race will die out.
A pressing thought yet there are things we can do to help, provide nectar plants for bees and provide nesting places for them to breed.
I was recently told by a Environmental Biologist that bees are finding it harder to locate flowers due to the lack of scent caused by pollution.
The sooner they bring in Hydrogen powered cars the better. The emission being H2O = water. That sounds like a very good idea.

[digger]

We had a lecture about bees in Llanberis, the chap said that the honey production has dropped in the last year to an unrecoverable level, i think Einstein said that without any bees the human race would die out within seven years. The parasite is of asian origin and the native asian bees are resistant to it, but of course the european bee is not! he asked us told write/e mail to our mp's about the problem, as at the moment the government is not doing much about the problem, we were told the government spends less than a million pounds per annum on research into the problem. I don't think the parasite attacks bumble bees, but bumble bees don't pollinate everything for us.

[Miranda]

Good to hear that you're into protecting bees, Neil. I'm very fond of them as well and am now wondering which Doctor Who episode it was where bees are mentioned.

I read in one of the papers the other day that bees also protect plants from pests - it said that things like caterpillars are scared away by the sound of buzzing because it's so like the buzzing of wasps, which eat the caterpillars. So, fewer bees could mean more caterpillars on plants and another good reason for looking after the bees we have left.