[4] Butler was engaged in beekeeping at his rural parsonage in Hampshire and made the first recorded observations about the generation of beeswax, which was previously thought to be gathered by honeybees 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.
It remained a valid and practical guide for beekeepers for two hundred fifty years, until Langstroth and others developed and promoted moveable comb hives.
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'.
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.