Alas, Trek runs on Hollywood science, not science science, so scientific accuracy less of a concern than being consistent with previous depictions (which may be written by several authors). And previous depictions had the queens/workers identify as "she" while the drones have been depicted eh...as both genders and as neutral.

In the end, I picked the zie/zir pronouns purely for the in-joke of all the zzz's in them (the Apiata stick a lot of zzz's in their naming scheme).

(This is also the trouble I have with writing the segment with the Tezuka expie. The lawyer jargon I'm expected to put in just urrgg... And don't talk to me about Atobe's expie. I'm not sure I can get his backstory to work.)