John Levett

Who is John Levett?

John Levett was of 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 tome 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.

John's Levett's identity is unclear. The author of The Ordering of Bees: Or, The True History of Managing Them 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. Whoever Levett was, he clearly had an advanced education. 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.