Singularity

Some people, often of darker intent, have attempted to replicate hives for their own purposes. The imperfect results of their experiments are psuedo-drones - creatures that are similar to true hives in brain, but lack the pure genetics of the body. Their minds are often close enough to a true drone's that they can be connected to real hives.

Amalgamate relationship with Drones/The Hivemind:
They hunt them, and tend to not want a cure for the DRONES... for many reasons. If one would happen across the other, the amalgamate wouldn't be able to be assimilated, because their body would just absorb the liquid and null it, essentially, but drones can become amalgamates. Amalgamated DRONES are usually eliminated. However, if a drone got sucked in into an amalgamate, that drone's connection to the hive would be eliminated. The amalgamate would just see the drone as "a freebie without having to worry about an extra mind". Thus, Amalgamates are extremely dangerous to drones. You could say that they are a major predator to them. Some have even developed evolutionary tactics to hijack a hive to lure drones to them.
When it comes to "irregularities", the semi-sentient drone wouldn't become a mind. The consciousness, however, would... and that consciousness would completely change in the amalgamate. It's almost like a prize for amalgamates, because they can attract multitudes of drones to themselves. A defective would become another mind, and hijacker would have the same case as a consciousness, except less powerful. Sometimes, a hive of drones will surround an amalgamate in order to trap it in building fluid, which allows them enough time to flee. This is a very rare occurence. However... since amalgamates can squeeze through anything, the ground can cave beneath them because of their acidic fluid, which then they could squeeze underneath and escape. Some drones will stay behind to ensure that they don't escape, usually by piling on the building fluid... but that ends up not working, as Amalgamates can escape swiftly and devour them on the spot. Thus, it's usually a good idea to flee...
There are many cases where subspecies either get effected by a spore, or by an amalgamation trap... which, in many cases, results in cases of which we call "Hybrids". For example, DRONES gain free will upon falling into a trap or being affected by a spore. These we call Amalgdronemates, and they are more insectoid in appearance unlike other amalgamations are. If a DRONE falls into a trap, it acts like a reset for them... they don't remember their former life as part of the hivemind, and their drone instincts are replaced by the more dragon-like amalgamation instincts. Spore amalgamations are a much sadder story, for they slowly begin to become insane as everything starts to conflict into one another, and are usually thought to be extremely dangerous due to their erratic, unpredictable nature.

Drone/The Hivemind's relationship with Amalgamates:
> DESIGNATION: HIGHLY DANGEROUS
> AVOID AT ALL COSTS
One of the few natural predators of drones. While not evolved for this purpose, they do the job quite well - by swallowing them whole, that is. Amalgamates are haunted by the minds of all the sentient creatures that they meet, meaning that drones are a perfect snack: they have a nutritious, dragonlike body and no pesky conscious hitchhikers. The connection runs deeper if an amalgamate gets a hold of a consciousness, whose mental broadcasts can be tweaked to lure in even more drones.