Samuel Hartlib was a German-born educational reformer prominent in England during the Commonwealth period. Travelling to London in 1628, he developed a significant corresponding network that discussed a huge variety of subjects from medicine, chemistry and horticulture to colonisation and charitable works. However, it was Hartlib’s contributions to husbandry that were most successful. This book on bees provides much useful information on beekeeping.

The work also served as a propaganda work in favour of the new political system in England in the 1650s. While earlier and later works on beekeeping were used as metaphors for monarchy, Hartlib instead emphasised an egalitarian approach, remarking on the freedom of bees in their ability to venture out and collect pollen to benefit the whole hive.