I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that the social insects of the real world aren't suited for being part of a hive mind, simply because they're very well optimised by evolution for their current lives, which don't appear to include a hive mind or anything close to one.
So what would an appropriate social insect be like? It probably needs to be a bit bigger than its real-world equivalent, and to eat more, simply because it has to support more nervous tissue, as a contribution to the hive mind, and more ability to communicate, so that the mind can operate. Since social insects often have physically specialised castes, such as queens, workers, drones, and so on, a caste that's specialised in being an element of the mind and nothing else seems plausible. And that allows the other castes to be fairly normal.
If the brain-caste stayed in the hive, you could have them develop direct neural connections, producing a large composite brain that worked at nerve speeds, and could thus compete with the brains of mammals. If the elements of a hive mind have to communicate between separate insects, that would presumably be via pheromones, gestures, or the like, which tends to be really slow compared to nerves. Those slower methods would still be useful for communicating with other castes.
If your hive mind concept uses all these ideas, I'd suggest making its insects bee-like, because flying gives many advantages, bee-stings are a good method of defending the hive, and people are used to the idea that a beehive can have complicated behaviour.