Is Beeswax free to play?

Yes. The daily bee is free every day and needs no account. Membership is optional and unlocks the archive, the Dojo, mulligans and streak freezes.

Do I need an account?

No. You can play today's bee straight away. A free account saves your streak and statistics across devices.

How many words are there each day?

Five, read aloud, getting harder each time. One wrong letter ends the day.

How long does a game take?

About two minutes. Each word has a two-minute limit of its own, but most spellers answer in a fraction of that.

Can I hear the word more than once?

Yes. You can replay the word as often as you like, and ask for the definition, a sentence, the language of origin and the part of speech.

Does American or British spelling count?

Both. Color and colour are each accepted. Accents are never required, per bee rules, so cliche is spelled c-l-i-c-h-e.

Can I play past puzzles?

Yes, with a membership, which opens the full archive of previous days.

Is this the same as the New York Times Spelling Bee?

No. That puzzle asks you to build words from seven given letters. Beeswax reads a word aloud and asks you to spell it.

🐝 Beeswax

Beeswax: a daily spelling bee for adults

spellbeeswax.com

Beeswax is a free daily spelling bee for grown-up spellers. Every morning there are five new words. Each one is read aloud, each is harder than the last, and one wrong letter ends your run for the day. It takes about two minutes to play.

It is the spelling-bee counterpart to the daily word and number games people already do with their coffee, with one difference that changes everything: you do not see the word. You hear it. Spelling a word you are looking at is proofreading. Spelling a word you have only heard is a spelling bee.

Play today's bee

How the daily spelling bee works

Five words a day, spoken aloud, ramping from easy to brutal.
Two minutes per word. The clock is the only thing chasing you.
Sudden death: one wrong letter and the day is over, so every letter counts.
Free hints on every word: the definition, the word used in a sentence, its language of origin, and its part of speech. The first hint on each word is always free, exactly as it is at a real bee.
A new puzzle every morning, and a streak that grows the more days you play.

Every word is really pronounced

Pronunciation is the whole game, so it is the part Beeswax is strictest about. Words are spoken from Merriam-Webster pronunciations rather than guessed at by a text-to-speech engine, which is what separates precede from proceed and keeps a near-homophone from quietly costing someone their streak.

How it differs from other spelling games

Most things called a spelling game are not spelling bees. Word puzzles built around a grid or a set of letters are vocabulary and pattern games: the letters are in front of you. Spelling apps aimed at classrooms or at learners of English are built to teach. Beeswax is built to test, the way a championship bee does, for adults who already read well and want to find out whether they can actually spell.

Is this the New York Times Spelling Bee?

No. The New York Times Spelling Bee is a letter-hive puzzle where you build as many words as you can from seven given letters. Beeswax reads a word aloud and asks you to spell it. Different game, same honest name.

What it costs

The daily bee is free, with no account required. An optional membership unlocks the extras for spellers who want more than one round a day:

The full archive of every past puzzle.
The Dojo, an endless survival run of the harder words.
A daily mulligan to retry one missed word.
Streak freezes, so a busy day does not end a long run.

Membership is $4 a month, or $48 once for lifetime access. There are also optional super hints, bought with credits, that reveal a word's length, the day's most common misspelling, its letters scrambled, or a check of your spelling before you commit to it. Beeswax carries no advertising.

Press

Beeswax has been covered by:

NPR
Lifehacker
Morning Brew
Elevator
Recomendo
No Dunks
Deal Secrets
Rich on Tech
Playlin

Players have spelled more than 650,000 words on Beeswax. Growth has come almost entirely from word of mouth: players share their daily result with about two friends on average.

Journalists and newsletter writers are welcome to get in touch for screenshots, figures, or a walkthrough. Andrew answers his own email at andrew.y.kong@gmail.com.

Who makes it

Beeswax is made by one person: Andrew Kong, a developer in Toronto who loves spelling games and wanted one built for adults. It is independent and self-funded, with no investors and no advertising. Players gather at r/spellbeeswax, where bug reports tend to get fixed within a day or two.

Common questions

Is Beeswax free to play?: Yes. The daily bee is free every day and needs no account. Membership is optional and unlocks the archive, the Dojo, mulligans and streak freezes.
Do I need an account?: No. You can play today's bee straight away. A free account saves your streak and statistics across devices.
How many words are there each day?: Five, read aloud, getting harder each time. One wrong letter ends the day.
How long does a game take?: About two minutes. Each word has a two-minute limit of its own, but most spellers answer in a fraction of that.
Can I hear the word more than once?: Yes. You can replay the word as often as you like, and ask for the definition, a sentence, the language of origin and the part of speech.
Does American or British spelling count?: Both. Color and colour are each accepted. Accents are never required, per bee rules, so cliché is spelled c-l-i-c-h-e.
Can I play past puzzles?: Yes, with a membership, which opens the full archive of previous days.
Is this the same as the New York Times Spelling Bee?: No. That puzzle asks you to build words from seven given letters. Beeswax reads a word aloud and asks you to spell it.

Play today's bee

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