John Levett

John Levett (also spelt Levit or Leavett) was a 17th-century English naturalist who was the author of a ground-breaking early study of the habits of bees, with close observation of their behaviour and suggestions on how to manage their hives, published in London in 1634. The Ordering of Bees: Or, The True History of Managing Them was one of the first agricultural textbooks, with a preface in rhyme by the author Samuel Purchas. It is among the earliest examples of what later became a flood of literature treating the English love of gardening and horticulture. Johns Levett's biography is unclear, but he is identified as a gentleman and had advanced education. He is thought to have been a clergyman, and possibly the nephew of English explorer Capt. Christopher Levett, one of the earliest explorers of New England. His book is dedicated to a member of the Suffolk gentry, and perhaps Levett was serving there. His book was considered groundbreaking because it combined close observation of bees with field experience in managing beehives. Levett explored the debate over bee gender, and over their means of reproducing. Levett's work quickly became the favoured book on the subject. Robert Child, the foremost agriculture writer of his day, said of Levett: "Hee is the best that ever write of this subject." At least part of Levett's appeal, aside from his careful study of his subjects, was his somewhat sly sense of humour. The drones, Levett warned, were "necessary and helpfull [sic] to the Bees, so long as they exceed not a due proportion (much like to Our lawyers), but let their number grow to(o) great (as it often doth) and they will indeed devoure the substance of the Bees (as the Lawyers of the Commonwealth) and bring it to destruction."