Evolution of Bees

According to this article, bees are far more sophisticated than other similar insects, but show a much lower rate of genetics changes and substitutions.

"Despite diverging from human ancestors more than 600 million years ago, the bee shares a number of genes with its vertebrate cousins that its insect brethren lack, such as those involving RNA interference, aging, DNA methylation and circadian rhythms."

"The honeybee genome is already yielding some other surprising conclusions, such as a very slow rate of evolution. 'There are fewer changes and substitutions in the honeybee when compared with Drosophila and Anopheles,' explains geneticist Martin Beye of the Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany, but he also notes that the bee has a relatively high rate of exchange of DNA between chromosomes, or recombination, to preserve diversity with only one breeding female in a hive. 'The existence of recombination is still one of the major biological questions,' he adds. 'We can test theoretical predictions on the basis of a 10 times higher recombination rate.'"

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Social Honeybee Shares Genetic Secrets