There are several races of Qieg, some having rusty-red shells, while others have yellow, light-blue, or dusky-orange shells. Males and females are very similar in size and appearance, and, unlike many other sentient insect species, have relatively equal roles to play in society. All females lay eggs, which are fertilized by many males. Qieg do not consider it important to claim offspring as one's own, and make no effort to determine whether a given infant is their child.

There is no family unit - offspring are raised communally. Loyalty to the hive, however, is deeply ingrained in each Qieg, and the present Barellian system of industrial mining cooperatives owes a lot to the Qieg culture. Indeed, the Qieg use the word "hive" to describe both their home nests and the cooperative in which they are a number.

Qieg culture de-emphasizes the importance of the indivdual and emphasizes racial and tribal pride. The various races of Qieg get along fine, though there is definitely a feeling of competition between them. The Qieg religion is one of predestination and acceptance of the status quo.

Qieg are very adept at solving mechanical and technical problems. Though they were in a feudal tech state when humans first came to the Lan system, they had already developed electronics and had a complex mining infrastructure in place. They quickly absorbed the new technologies the humans brought with them, and begun to upgrade their economy to more closely approximate the galactic standard.

The Qieg communicate with one another in a series of clicks, chirps and mandible motions, and by waving their antennae about in certain patterns. Due to the similarity in sound, some Qieg can speak droid binary. Those Qieg dealing regularly with humans wear electronic masks that reproduce the vocal ranges of the human voice box. Some Qieg live in the mining towns and in Shulell, but most Qieg live in the forests, in nests fashioned from great hollowed-out cacti.