uninvited guest: update

When I wrote about our uninvited guest—a wasp—last week, I did so in the expectation that it had completed it’s task. I was mistaken.

Two days later, it was back, and although I didn’t see it seal the first ‘pod’, I caught it in the act of constructing a second alongside the first:

And this was the completed ‘pod’, with neatly sculpted entrance hole:

A day later, Paula and I went out cycling, and during our absence the wasp had sealed the second ‘pod’ and completed a third:

I didn’t see it seal the third ‘pod’ either:

However, the last four days have been damp, and although the wasp’s handiwork is protected from direct rainfall by the top of the balcony rail, it does seem to have been affected by dripping water. The previous photo was taken today, four days after the wasp’s latest nefarious activity. And it hasn’t been back.

further update
I was enjoying my morning coffee on the balcony on 16th May when I noticed that a hole had appeared in the wasp’s first ‘pod’:

Paula and I then went for a bike ride, and when we returned, the second and third ‘pods’ had also been vacated:

I waited for a few days before posting this update to see whether the occupant of the fourth ‘pod’ would emerge, but it never did. Either it tunnelled into an adjacent ‘pod’ and made its escape that way, or it was the victim of the skullduggery that I hinted at in A Cuckoo in the Nest?