THEY are the scourge of summer garden barbecues and ice cream-eating youngsters and are found in ever increasing numbers.

And this year there seem to be millions of them in every pub garden.

The humble wasp and its powerful sting has had an excellent year, thriving on fallen fruit, nectar and catching other insects as well trying to feed on whatever sugary items they might find around you.

Dr Mike Solomon, an entom-ologist and director of the East Malling Research Centre in Kent who carries out research for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which is based in North Star in Swindon, says that the wasp has had a great year.

He said: "It has been a good year for wasps unlike bees which have evolved to be able to survive the winter, all wasps die out except the queens, so how many abundant wasps there are depends on how many queens survive the winter.

"And in this year's case many more have managed to make it through the winter."

Wasp queens go into hibern-ation in early spring and it is not uncommon to discover a hibernating queen in the folds of curtains in houses.

Common wasps are social insects and live in nests of up to around 10,000 workers.

At home, the wasp can be a mixed blessing. For the gardener wasps can be a benefit as they often hunt other insects that might damage plants.

However, they are not so welcome however when trees and bushes begin to fruit.

They can be discouraged though with a simple diversion of food such as over-ripe fruit kept in another part of the garden, or by attracting insect-eating birds such as blackbirds and starlings to the garden in an attempt to keep wasp numbers down.

Meanwhile that other garden pest, the slug has been making use of the recent summer weather.

Weeks of grey soggy conditions, which we would normally associate with the autumn, have attracted slugs to the surface to feed, but there has been no increase in their numbers.

Dr Solomon explained: "We are obviously experiencing a lot of wet weather at the moment which is attracting many more slugs to the surface than we would normally see during the summer months."

"There has been no increase in there numbers, it is simply that we are not used to seeing them in July and August."

Every year, gardeners spend an estimated £30m to protect lettuce, Brussels sprouts, potatoes and winter wheat from slugs and snails.

Anthony Osborne