As early as their first appearance in Cretaceous fossil amber, both ants and termites played host to phoretic mites, with parasitic mesostigmatid mites appearing as early as the Eocene in Baltic amber. Incredibly, even the behavior-modifying fungal infections of ants are documented in the rock record. 

The fossil record of Apis is vital to understanding the historical biogeography of honey bees. While today all honey bees have a native distribution in the Old World, during at least the Miocene they occurred in western North America. Apis nearctica has been recovered from mid-Miocene shales of central Nevada and demonstrates the dangers of basing ancient biogeographic patterns solely on the present-day occurrence of living species. Like horses, gingkoes, and Ailanthus, honey bees were once native to the New World but became extinct and were subsequently reintroduced by humans during the colonial era.

Phillip Barden and Michael S. Engel.  Fossil Social Insects

PLB

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