Here's why there so many wasps around!

If you've been out and about in recent weeks you may have noticed a lot of wasps.

The rise in population is because of a few factors, including the amount of aphids right now which are helping to keep these narrow-waisted flying insects well fed.

"They're able to take all that protein and bring it back to the colony. And that way they're going to be laying a lot more eggs and a lot more larva, " Marcello Greco of Buzz Boss told Sarah Nick of 104.7 The LIZARD.

"Overall, the wasp population is going to be blooming naturally. The weather has been in their favor as well. "

The recent heat waves and warm end to summer has played its role too.

""We've had almost triple the calls that we did this time last year for wasps," he noted. "If those workers survive over the winter, and if they survive, then we're going to have issues going into the next year as well."

While it'd be hard to eliminate the entire wasp population in Kelowna, there are effective ways to reduce the number of them around your home.

Greco suggests that if the nest is small and you're feeling bold, try using a pesticide at night or early in the morning when the wasps are asleep in the hive.

Along with tackling them head on, there's some safer ways to decrease numbers, such as making sure garbage bins or any waste is tightly sealed, and making sure there's no lingering food around your yard.

"As long as we have food for them, they're going to be trying to take it from us as fall [comes along] and they get a lot more aggressive," he said.

"Their natural food sources start to run out, aphids are gonna start dying off as it gets cooler. Going into these next two weeks here, they're going to get very, very aggressive competing for our food because the aphids are gone."