They only drop ore, scrap, and queen processor cores. I haven't seen a hive positron or hive gattling turret in forever from an Itani hive queen. the Serco queens still drop weapons, but I'm not sure about the UIT and grey space ones.

The escort is ignoring you if you attack them or the Queen until the Queen is killed. Thus you kill the escort first then the Queen. Makes for a boring task after the first few times once you have mastered stacking.

Itani queens definely drop Hive Positrons. I have also recently seen the return of Defensive Matrices, (in fact, 3 in the last 3 Critical HS queens), although it's been 100 queen kills since I've seen a Hive Gat.

JE