Reverend Bees

Evidence of past beekeeping in Wales comes from some unexpected sources, including the Welsh language itself, and texts of early laws, as well as other written material and archaeological remains. In the Brythonic Celtic languages, including Welsh, the bee is named for its stinging - gwenynen - the nearest English cognate to which is wen related to wound. The collective word for bees is the simpler gwenyn, which is thus likely to have been used earlier than the word for an individual bee.
(Quite possibly because Welsh views and interprets life and its components in more collective terms, and less individualistic terms.)... In almost all other Indo-European languages, including Scottish and Irish, the bee is named after the sound it makes.