The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can't keep away from it.
In this stanza of the poem, the speaker acknowledges the dangers of the bee box. She realizes that what is contained inside could hurt her, but this appears to increase her curiosity and fascination with the box. This might be interpreted as representing the speaker's attraction to danger, and even death. It can also be understood as revealing her feelings of responsibility and obligation: she feels that sense of obligation so strongly that she dares not turn her attention away from the box. The straightforward, declarative statements at work here contrast somewhat with the poem's generally enigmatic tone and densely metaphorical language. They establish some basic facts about the speaker's situation, establishing grounding for the reader so that they are not lost or confused as the poem grows more complex.
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.
Here, the speaker compares the bees in the box to people abducted during the transatlantic slave trade. On the one hand, contemporary readers might find this comparison, and the language Plath uses, insensitive. On the other, Plath is not simply making a superficial comparison between the crowdedness of the box and the conditions on a slave ship. She is comparing the speaker's control over the bees to one of history's most egregious instances of subjugation and cruelty between humans. In doing so, she indicates the depths of the speaker's guilt and panic over her power.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.
Here, the speaker combats her fear and trepidation about the bees by asserting her power over them. She remembers that the bees don't control her: she controls them, to such an extent that she can easily starve them to death. This is one of the longer line's in the poem, containing three separate independent clauses. This structure allows us to see the speaker reaching a series of conclusions, one at a time and linearly. The first sentence, which begins with "they," focuses on the bees' agency and unpredictability as the speaker realizes that their conditions may change dramatically—they may even die. Then, she realizes, changes affecting the bees are actually within her control, and she can bring about their death. As she realizes that agency lies within her rather than the bees, the subject of her phrase shifts to "I." The final sentence also begins with "I," but the verb is merely "am," conveying a state of being rather than an action. Here, the speaker realizes that her agency is limited. Her power is rooted in the fact that she owns the bees, and this fact is now an unchangeable part of her identity.
