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Project Noah Nature School
Apis mellifera
White roundish and vertical combs, some 12-15cm in diameter, about 3-4 cm deep, hanging freely from a large branch at some 3-3.5m of height. By the whitish traces on the bark of that branch, this looks like a part of a much larger construction, that was removed from that branch at some stage.
Seen in our backyard, at outskirts of a small urban center in Geneva lake valley. The backyard surrounds our apartment building, and it counts a number of deciduous trees and shrubs. It neighbours a meadow (used for producing hay) and a lowland deciduous (mainly oak and beech) forest, and some other agricultural fields.
At first I though of Hornets, as we did have some problems with hornets entering appartements in spring and summer, when windows are mainly open. However, this construction seems rather open, and domestic bees would attach combs directly to the support, and let them hang vertically. Hornets would construct them inside the nest, and lay them out horizontally, without attaching combs to the support. (there is a great article presented aside, in references; on how to distinguish various nests).
Spotted on Jan 16, 2022
Submitted on Jan 19, 2022
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An additional picture added to this spotting, to describe better the conditions under which these were constructed.