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Bees to this day are very respected in Lithuania. A very close friend can be being called "Bičiulis" which is derived from a word bee. As in "bee honey" = "Bičių medus". For english speakers the pronunciation can sound a bit contraindicative ʙɪᴛᴄʜ-ᴜʟɪs

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The name wasn’t based on bees just because bees are respected. “Bičiulystė” (meaning friendship, using the same word Bičiulis) was usually a neighbor friendship with a particular purpose: to take care of bees communally.

Looks like 'medus' and 'mead' have the same root, offhand?

The proto-balto-slavic root for honey is "med", which is why the word for bear is usually some variation of "medved", meaning "honey eater", due to that weird process where something scary becomes taboo and gets replaces with some phrase.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic...

Indeed. And the Lithuanian word for 'bee', bitė, is also cognate with the English word as per Wiktionary[1].

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bit%C4%97#Lithuanian

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