There aren't any eusocial animals (hives of wasps, ants, termites, etc) that hunt large prey, are there?
I'm thinking prey in the size range of, say, a rabbit, or even a deer.
I can't see a rabbit or a deer having any real effective way to defend against a swarm of hornets, especially if you supposed that the hornets' venom could easily be adapted to be particularly effective against such prey.
Intuitively, this seems like it would be a lucrative little niche.
Like:
A swarm could bring down a kill without risking losing too many members.
The return seems like it could be very high.
There shouldn't be too much of a risk of losing much of the kill to scavengers or whatever.
And after starting down the evolutionary pathway into such a niche, they could easily develop methods of preserving meat (I'm imagining a horrifying hive full of natural ham, here).
Protecting this ham-hive wouldn't be any more difficult than protecting a honey-hive from bears etc.
And such a niche doesn't seem that evolutionarily distant from where hornets already are.
Like:
They already do seriously hurt or even kill large animals that they perceive as threatening their hive.
They already do scavenge large animals they find dead, and even steal the occasional chunk of flesh from living animals.
But as far as I know, nothing like this exists, right?
Why not?
(And, like... maybe the most important question: How can we make sure it never comes into existence?)