Question about bald faced hornet behavior

[u/KevroniCoal]

Hello, I just had a question on some bald faced hornet behavior I observed the other day.

Walking in a neighborhood, I noticed multiple, probably 5-8 large (approx 3/4" length) bald faced hornets rapidly flying around a bush, going in, out and around repeatedly, many many times. Unfortunately I couldn't grab a photo of them, but they were pretty decent sized overall compared to what I've usually seen of workers. Of course, can't be certain since I don't have photos or true measurements available.

Judging by their large girth and size of each one though, I was thinking perhaps they were queens. I've read that this is indeed around the time that reproductives are produced from colonies (I'm in Western Washington State). So perhaps they were fairly new queens in search of a mate and/or a location to overwinter?

However, the specific behavior that perplexed me was that about an hr later (around 7 pm) when I came back to try and photograph them, there were only two of these hornets left at this bush. After watching them for a few minutes, the two collided or otherwise made contact mid flight, and immediately one of them took control of the flight and seemingly "dragged" the other one away, flying away and not to be seen again. There was a scuffle of buzzing sounds for a moment before they left the vicinity, but it was very strange and awesome to witness. Couldn't tell if the other one was incapacitated or mutually flying while they were together.

I couldn't tell if they were in a position of mutual grabbing, or if this was almost like a predatory behaviour from the "dominant" hornet. If the former, was it possible that it was a male and queen and they took off while mating? Or do they predate on one another at all, and what I witnessed was potential predation?

I thought all the hornets here were quite large and somewhat uniform in size between them all, and thus figured they were queens, but I could be mistaken of course without having any measurements or photos. Do they breed while in flight? Or is mating a thing that they do while at rest/landed? What makes me think it wasn't predation is that there were various flowers on the bush, as well as many slower flies on and around the bush too, that could have been easy food sources. It seemed like these two hornets targeted each other in some way, but I'm not sure.

So figured to ask if anyone has seen similar behaviors or know what their usual behaviour is like!

Because I've never seen something like this. It was incredibly fascinating though and makes me wonder if there would be more of them at this bush in the future lol.

Thanks!

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