1. ‘the bee meeting’
p. 55

2. Biographical background
Otto Plath had been an authority on bumble bees and written a book on them: ‘Bumblebees and Their Ways’ (1934). As a boy in Germany, he had been nicknamed Beinen-Konig (king of the bees) and when he emigrated to the United States, he became a professor of entomology at Boston University. 
Autumn1962 (four months before her death) Sylvia Plath wrote a cluster of poems about bees (‘The Bee Meeting,’ ‘The Arrival of the Bee Box,’ ‘Stings’ and ‘Wintering.’ 
She had taken up beekeeping that June and wrote to her mother to describe the events of attending a local beekeepers’ meeting in the Devon village of North Tawton, where she had moved Ted and Frieda in September 1961. 
Bee-keeping rapidly turned into a nightmare for her.  She realized that the ‘friend’ who was helping her and Ted with the babies was actually Ted’s mistress.  She was also unprepared for the bees, writing in her diary that:
"We felt very new and shy, I hugging my bare arms into the cool of the evening, for I had not thought to bring a sweater...Then I saw, on the grass, and in hands, everybody was holding a bee hat, some with netting of nylon, most with box screening, some with khaki round hats. I felt barer and barer. People became concerned. Have you no hat? Have you no coat?.... (the secretary) came back with a small white silk button down smock, the sort pharmacists assistants use. I put it on and buttoned it and felt more protected...."

3. What is the poem about? The poem has two layers of meaning:
The first is an account of her first meeting with a hive of bees: she notes them as a society, comparing them to human inhabitants of a town: ‘the rector,’ ‘the midwife’ etc. She describes their reactions (or lack of reactions) to her and hers to them, feeling that ‘they are making me one of them.’
In synthesis with this fairly simple narrative, Plath uses the allegory of meeting the bees to describe trying to fit in, in a society in which she felt she was alien. This is enhanced because she had just discovered that Ted Hughes was cheating on her and felt that everyone was judging her because of this.
Now read the poem, making note of anything that you notice on first reading.

4. Creative/ artistic task
Read back over your allotted stanza(s) and summarise what is happening in bullet points.
Then create a sketch/ storyboard with quotations to illustrate your stanza(s).
Be prepared to explain your ideas.
Stanzas 1-2
Stanzas 3-4
Stanzas 5-6
Stanzas 7-8
Stanza 9
Stanzas 10-11
Stanzas 12

5. Close analysis of themes and ideas
In pairs, find examples of the following ideas within the poem. Remember to analyse closely how meaning is created through lexis, imagery, sound and structure:
Desire for death
Transformation/ renewal
Isolation
The synthesis of nature and humanity
Desire for acceptance
Jealously/ revenge
fear

6. Close analysis of techniques
In pairs, find examples of the following techniques within the poem. What effect do they have? Are these typical of Plath’s other poems?
Colour imagery
Personification/ animism/ anthropomorphism
Ambiguity
The synthesis of nature and humanity
Questions
Simile
Sibillance, alliteration
Listing and repetition