16 pages • 32 minutes read
Wild Bees
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Themes
Nostalgia
The poem is from the point of view of an adult looking back at a youthful memory. They see summer days as idyllic and halcyon until their experience with the bees. The poem opens with “Often in summer” (Line 1), suggesting a stretch of years and other summers preceding the poem’s events. The speaker remembers a wooden bridge, willow trees, a rented boat—all images of a peaceful childhood in the countryside.
Specific details may be the product of invention rather than true memory: the “gauze wings a-glitter” (Line 4), the bees “swift as tigers” (Line 4), the “crickets chitter” (Line 11) as the friends waited for nightfall. The reader wonders how much of the stage is set by the vivid memory of the day, and how much has blurred and recrystallized over time. Toward the poem’s end we see the blurring of memory: “A hive burned on a cool night in summer” (Line 27); we know that the poem’s event takes place in January. This echoes the summer days referenced in the beginning; the speaker perhaps superimposes softer days over the harsh winter of their memory.
As the poem closes, the poet speaks of loss, “a precious stone to me, a nectar / Distilled in time” (Lines 28-29). The loss may refer to the honey that was destroyed, or to the innocence that was shattered. The event, though traumatizing, becomes something the speaker holds close.
Man vs Nature
The poem features the struggle of humanity against the natural world. Although the speaker compares the beehive to fallen cities of classical tragedy, the bees have no political motivation or hidden motives. The speaker observed the bees from a safe distance for years and the bees were never any threat until provoked. It is only when the speaker and their friends endanger the bees and everything they worked for that the bees retaliate. By disrupting the natural order, the people in the poem suffer greatly.
By the end of the poem, the group stands in uncertain victory. The reader is left to wonder, who is the victor? Most, if not all, of the bees are dead. The friends have been stung and left to face the mindless destruction they have wrought. Finally, the honey, the treasure both sides fought for, has been decimated and useless. This poem suggests that there won’t be any winners when we rise against nature instead of working in partnership with it.
Instinct
This poem focuses on both the bees and humans’ natural instincts. The bees engage “In passionless industry” (Line 5), creating honey without art or craftsmanship; their honey production comes from an animal instinct which is built into their very being. Later, the bees are “suicidal / Live raiders” (Lines 17-18), stinging their attackers even though they know they will die. Did they sting because their lives were worth less than the honey they created? Most likely, the trade-off didn’t even occur to them—they were running on pure instinct.
The reader wonders how much of the humans’ actions are also instinct. Though methodical in their attack, the friends’ need to forage and bend nature to their own desire is a very human drive. Humans feel secure knowing they can conquer something. In this way, the boys’ decision to raid the beehive comes from a deep, primordial place.
As the speaker begins to understand the tragedy that has taken place and their role in it, they begin to transcend their innate instincts and grow into a better, more mindful human being.
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