I'm concerned about their integration into Starfleet. They may not be able to crew mixed race vessels. However, some support roles like starbase operation and ship construction where they can be an entire department may work. We may need to do special exchange programs with their home fleet and have their personal transfer back and forth. However, that is something we need to talk with them, the council, and the personal office.
Well, one of their senior queens went off to live on one of our ships for like a year, and it was only a problem because:
1) She had no clearly defined responsibilities and got underfoot.
2) She was a
very senior queen, accustomed to bossing around everyone around her, and was therefore insubordinate and disruptive.
3) She had important responsibilities at home which she was neglecting to go into space with Blue Lesbian Kirk.
(1) isn't a problem for Apiata joining Starfleet. (2) and (3) aren't likely problems for any Apiata actually
joining Starfleet.
(2) and (3) aren't problems if you aren't dealing with highly senior queens. And either way... Consider. Either the percentage of queens among the Apiata population is high, or it's low.
If it's low, then workers must necessarily be accustomed to functioning without close personal oversight from a queen. In which case they will presumably be fine with working aboard a spaceship for years without queens of their own species being present in person.
If it's high,
maybe workers are too dependent on queen direction and pheromones to be functional without queen s being present... but in that case there are likely more queens than are strictly necessary to run things, and queens joining Starfleet is hardly impossible or even unlikely. It might even be an effective way for them to gain knowledge and experience that increases their status in their own internal 'pecking order.' Moreover, if queens are common there has to
be a "pecking order" and queens have to be accustomed to that. Which means that queens who AREN'T grand high panjandrum of a whole planet probably know how to take orders.
And either way, if we have actual problems, I suspect the Apiata themselves can help us. They're an advanced species and are presumably aware of the biochemical basis of their own caste structure; they may not want to
rearrange their caste structure but they have to know how it works, and how to keep Apiata from going stir-crazy due to lack of members of the other caste(s).
