The Arrival of the Bee Box Quizzes

The Arrival of the Bee Box Quiz

By Eleanor Stern · Edited by James Cooper · Last reviewed November 18, 2021

1 Who is the poem's speaker?

Somebody who has just ordered a box full of bees

A writer comparing her words to swarming bees

A bee who lives on a farm

A grieving husband participating in the custom of "telling the bees"
2 Broadly speaking, what did bees symbolize in seventeenth-century Europe?

Noisiness and immorality

Creativity and individuality

Poverty and monasticism

Hard work and piety
3 What is the meaning of the word "colonnade"?

A colonial outpost

A row of columns

A military parade

A dessert made of fruit
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?

Mary Leapor

John Mandeville

John Greenleaf Whittier

Fanny Burney
5 What are the bees probably NOT intended to symbolize in this poem?

Climate change

Sexual aggression

The speaker's thoughts

Familial demands on women
6 Where does the poem most likely take place?

The speaker's home

An industrial honey farm

A school

A field of flowers
7 Which collection was this poem a part of?

Ariel

Double Exposure

The Colossus

The Bell Jar
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?

It is the only part that does not rhyme

It is written in a different meter

It is only one line long

It is spoken by a different speaker
9 Fill in the blank: I wonder if they would forget me/If I just undid the locks and stood back and _______"

ran away

closed my eyes

died

turned into a tree
10 Which is an example of irony?

The speaker's feeling of temptation despite the danger of the bees

The amount of noise that the bees make

The speaker's comparison of herself to God

The speaker's ability to keep her bees alive or let them die
11 Fill in the blank: It is the noise that _____ me most of all,

ensnares

appalls

distracts

intrigues
12 What does the speaker NOT compare the box to?

A coffin

A chair

A baby

A tent
13 How many stanzas are in the poem?

7

3

5

9
14 The speaker compares the bees to a mob from where?

Revolutionary America

The Old West

Victorian Britain

Ancient Rome
15 What is the meaning of the word "laburnum"?

A diploma

A New England company

A type of tree

A kitchen counter
16 What is the meaning of the word "din"?

Hillside

Sunset

Noise

Dinner
17 Which best describes the poem's portrayal of power?

The speaker struggles for power, but is no match for nature

The speaker struggles to decide whether it is she or the bees who holds disproportionate power

The bees' power comes from their cleanliness and cooperativeness

The speaker loses her power when she buys the bees and gives up her job
18 What is the poem's meter?

Dactylic pentameter

Iambic pentameter

Anapestic tetrameter

It has no set meter
19 What best describes the poem's conflict?

The bee's decision about whether to sting the human

The speaker's decision about whether to free the bees

The beekeeper's conflict with the industrialist

The speaker's fight against the queen bee
20 What best describes the speaker's feelings about the bees?

alternating fascination and fear

maddening irritation

self-effacing admiration

intimacy and love
21 What type of stanzas appear in the poem?

Tercets

The stanzas are unmatched

Sestets

Couplets
22 How is the theme of femininity discussed in the poem?

The speaker's desire to engage with insects hints at a need to escape human gender norms

The queen bee represents the feminists of the twentieth century

The bees' collaboration suggests that only collaboration between women will better their lot

The poem subtly equates the speaker's fear of the bees with women's fear of violence or subjugation
23 Which mythological figure is alluded to in the poem?

Persephone

Daphne

Narcissus

Hercules
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?

Escape from conflict

The abundance of nature

Strength

The speaker's ambivalence
25 Which of the following is a metaphor?

"There is only a little grid, no exit"

"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

"They can die, I can feed them nothing"

"Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift"

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