Charles Butler (1571 – 29 March 1647), sometimes called the ''Father of English Beekeeping'', was a logician, grammarist, author, priest (Vicar of

Wootton St Lawrence Wootton St Lawrence is a small village in the civil parish of Wootton St Lawrence with Ramsdell, in Hampshire, England, west of Basingstoke. The name is derived from the Old English ''wudu tun'' meaning woodland settlement or farm. History T ...

, near Basingstoke,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

), and an influential

beekeeper A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin '' apis'', bee; cf. apiary). The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees i ...

. He was also an early proponent of English spelling reform. He observed that bees produce wax combs from scales of wax produced in their own bodies; and he was among the first to assert that drones are male and the queen female, though he believed worker bees lay eggs.

Biography

Butler was born into a poor family in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...

, South East England, but became a boy chorister at Magdalen College,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

at the age of eight. At the age of ten, he matriculated, taking his BA in 1584 and his MA in 1587. In 1593, Butler became Rector of

Nately Scures Nately Scures is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Newnham in the Basingstoke and Deane district of Hampshire, England. Its nearest large village is Hook, which lies approximately north-east from the village. In 19 ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

in 1593 and in 1595 became also Master at the Holy Ghost School, Basingstoke. He resigned to accept an incumbency at

in 1600 and served that rural post until his death on 29 March 1647. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the chancel of his church.

Beekeeping

Butler was engaged in beekeeping at his rural parsonage in Hampshire and made the first recorded observations about the generation of

beeswax Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive work ...

, which was previously thought to be gathered by

honeybees A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current c ...

from plant materials. He was not the first to describe the largest honeybee as a queen, rather than king - a distinction usually granted to Spaniard Luis Mendez de Torres for his 1586 observation, which was confirmed by Swammerdam's later microscopic dissections. However, Butler popularized the notion with his classic book ''The Feminine Monarchie'', 1609. Butler may have misinterpreted the queen's function when he found queenless colonies sometimes develop eggs laid by "laying workers", however there is no doubt he saw the queen as an Amazonian ruler of the hive. As an influential beekeeper and author, his assertion that drones are male and workers female, was quickly accepted. For his discoveries and his book, Butler is sometimes called the ''Father of English Beekeeping''.

The Feminine Monarchie

'' The Feminine Monarchie'', originally published by Joseph Barnes, Oxford, in 1609, is the first full-length English-language book about beekeeping. It remained a valid and practical guide for beekeepers for two hundred fifty years, until Langstroth and others developed and promoted moveable comb hives. Butler revised ''The Feminine Monarchie'' in 1623 and 1634. It was translated into

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

in 1678 and 1682, then from Latin back to English again in 1704. The title expresses Butler's main idea that the colony is governed, not by a king-bee, as Aristotle claimed, but by a queen-bee. The last edition written by Butler contains ten chapters, including sections regarding bee gardens, hive-making materials, swarm catching, enemies of bees, feeding bees, and the benefits of bees to fruit (

pollination Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an Stamen, anther of a plant to the stigma (botany), stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by Anemophily, wind. Pollinating agents can ...

). The book gives an excellent account of

skep A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus '' Apis'' live and raise their young. Though the word ''beehive'' is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature ...

beekeeping, including methods of predicting - from tone pitch of the buzzing bees - when swarming might occur. Butler even transliterated the tones and included the Bees' Madrigal on a musical score in the 1623 edition. He further suggested that musicians may trace the roots of music back to the sounds of the hive.Sarton, George (1943). "The Feminine Monarchie of Charles Butler", ''Isis,'' Vol 34, No 6. pp. 469-472.

Spelling reform

Charles Butler published an English grammar (1633) with proposals to improve spelling to a phonetic alphabet. In his book, Butler condemned the vagaries of traditional English spelling and proposed the adoption of a system whereby men should write altogeđer according to đe sound now generally received. The 1634 edition of his beekeeping classic was written and published in his new orthography.

Other writings

Butler authored a bestselling school textbook, '' The Logic of Ramus'' (1597), an introduction to the philosophy of the Protestant French contemporary

Pierre de la Ramée Petrus Ramus (french: Pierre de La Ramée; Anglicized as Peter Ramus ; 1515 – 26 August 1572) was a French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was a victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Early lif ...

. He also published a book on music theory, ''The principles of musik in singing and setting'' (1636), and a theological defence of marriage between first cousins, coinciding with the engagement and subsequent marriage of his daughter to his nephew.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Charles 1571 births 1647 deaths English beekeepers Linguists of English Orthographers 17th-century English Anglican priests English music theorists 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers Beekeeping pioneers People from Wootton St Lawrence