The repetition
The entire stanza repeats exactly. Not a printing error—Dickinson sometimes used repetition to intensify questions she couldn't answer.
Conditional grammar
The subjunctive 'Wert thou' (if you were) sets up a hypothetical—she's comparing the addressee to something they're not.
Queen bee biology
Worker bees gather pollen for their queen. Dickinson reverses this—she's the one offering flowers, making herself the worker.
Reading Notes
The Logic of the Comparison
The poem's argument works through inversion. If you were a bumblebee, I could do more for you—because bees get what they need (flowers/pollen). Since you're not a bee, all I have to offer is the same bouquet, which apparently isn't enough.
The word "Nought" is doing heavy work here. It means "nothing" but also "nothing but"—she has flowers, but flowers are insufficient for a human relationship. What bees need and what people need aren't the same thing.
This is likely a love poem about inadequacy. Dickinson is saying: I know how to serve a queen bee (give flowers), but I don't know how to serve you. The conditional grammar—"Could I do more"—suggests she feels she's failing someone she wants to please.
Why Repeat the Whole Thing?
The exact repetition of all four lines is unusual even for Dickinson, who loved repetition. It's not a copying error—manuscripts show she did this deliberately in several poems.
Repetition here functions like circling back to an unanswerable question. She asks it once, gets no answer, asks it again exactly the same way. The form enacts the helplessness—she's stuck, unable to move past this feeling of inadequacy.
The bee imagery appears throughout Dickinson's work, often tied to her relationship with Susan Gilbert Dickinson (her sister-in-law and likely romantic interest). Bees represented both industry and devotion—they serve their queen faithfully. Here, Dickinson casts herself as worker bee, but admits her service (flowers/poetry) might not be what's needed.