I've always assumed that the queen escorts being passive was a bug. Every queen I took over the weekend except one (like 8-10) were passive, and only a few dropped anything except ore.

I understand queen drops will be random, but with the hive issues we've been having....I just figured it's strange for that many queen escorts not to fight back.

iTS A 50% CHANCE THE WILL BE PISSED OR NOT, COUNT YOURSELVE LUCKY

Well, even when the escorts are passive, if you attack the queen and do actual hull damage once the shields are down the escorts will attack you if they are still around.

It's not a 50% chance, it's some sort of "guarding" logic the NPCs seem to use. The ones guarding the static hive transports work the same way, if you do any damage to the transport, they will all turn hostile and fire on you.