An Analysis of "Honeybees" poem by Barbara Vance

Children have to be aware of our environment at early age. Through children's literature, they can improve the awareness so they can understand the importance of nature to human being. For example, there is children's poetry by Barbara Vance that tells about the nature of animals.

The poem entitled "Honeybees" by Barbara Vance is a poem about nature of animal honeybees. Barbara Vance is an author and illustrator also her children's poetry and stories have been used by numerous education and arts organization. The form of "Honeybees" poem is lyric verse. Lyric poetry is a form of poetry that often written about a single subject, with one voice. The poem "Honeybees" tells the story with subject nature of animal BEEs with the words such as; "hives", "honey" "sharp stingers" and "sting" that are related to the animal bees. In this poem, there are point such as, imagery, figurative language, and poetic devices to convey the theme: the nature of honeybees.The structure of "Honeybees" consists two line stanzas or Couplets as each stanza consists of four line. The rhyme of the poem is end rhyme with syllables ABCB and DEFE. The ABCB represents the sounds of the word "yellow", "chore", "honey" and "adore". While, theDEFE represents the sounds of the word "stingers", "space", "dwelling" and "face". In the stanza one, the poem tells about character honeybees which are a bright sunny yellow that shown in the first line "Honeybees are a bright sunny yellow," and the characterization which is a hard worked to fill up the hives with honey that shown in second line "And they're busy all day with the chore". Then, in the stanza two the poem tells the warning for all creatures to not disturb them. It shown in the sixth line "They don't like invasions of space" because they will sting if you come near their hives, it shown in the two last lines "And if you come too near their dwelling," "They'll sting you all over your face". Also about the character of honeybees which dangerous because have very sharp stingers that shown in fifth line "Honeybees all have very sharp stingers".

The poem "Honeybees" contains the imagery of sight, sound, taste, and touch. Imagery of sight is shown in the first line "Honeybees are a bright sunny yellow," it gives imagination of bees that have yellow color. In the third line "Of filling their hives up with honey" it shown imagery of taste which the word honey gives meaning of sweet thick liquid. Imagery of sound is shown in the fourth line "I've heard it's a food they adore" which the word heard gives meaning of rumor. Thus, in the last line "They'll sting you all over your face." it indicates the imagery of touch which the word sting gives the sense of hurt. Moreover, in this poem also have connotation in the first line "Honeybees are a bright sunny yellow," in the words "bright sunny yellow" have connotation the color of honeybees which golden-yellow that same as the color of the sun. The denotation in the words "bright sunny yellow" are the color of the sun.

The poem "Honeybees" uses two figurative languages such as metaphor and personification. The metaphor shown in the first line "Honeybees are a bright sunny yellow," which give the comparison between honeybees with sun bright because the body color of honeybees almost look like bright sunny yellow. The personification shown in the second line "And they're busy all day with the chore" it give meaning the word they which is a pronoun for people is directed for the bees. In the poem, there are also pronouns such as: "I", "you", "they", and "their". The pronoun "they" and "their" in the second and third line refer to the honeybees because filling the hives up with honey is what honeybees doing. In the fourth line, the pronoun "I" refers to the speaker or narrator as the first person and the pronoun "they" refer to the human and bears, because human often take the honey as natural sweetener for food and bears often stole it as main course.

The "Honeybees" poem have theme about ecosystem of honeybees in nature. Honeybees are the world's most important single species of pollinator in natural ecosystems and a key contributor to natural ecosystem functions. Honey bees live in well-organized. Honey bees are kept for honey, and other by-products such as wax. These little insects can be fierce, especially when provoked, honeybees tend to be aggressive when they face a threat and want to defend their colony. As shown in the two stanza the poem tells the warning such as "They don't like invasions of space;", "And if you come too near their dwelling," and "They'll sting you all over your face". In fact, the rise hobby in beekeeping, now become a trendy activity for hundreds of thousands of Americans, because honey is the food that liked by many as shown in third line (I've heard it's a food they adore). For this reason, honeybees have been domesticated by humans for centuries. But as a species, honeybees are least in need of saving, followed strong awareness campaigns to "save the bees".

In conclusion, honeybees are best known for their production of honey, which they store in wax combs inside nests. Honey, which the bees produce from the nectar of flowers, was virtually the only form of sugar readily available to humans until modern times. Besides, honeybees are under assault from pesticides, climate change, mites and habitat destruction. Therefore, many people beekeeping because profitable and think it will save the bees. Although, the fact Scientists disagree because keeping honey bees is not wildlife conservation.