Beekeeper Crosswords Themed Puzzles from Beekeeper Labs

April 28, 2009

Placeholder: Delayed puzzle this week

Filed under: Uncategorized — @ 3:37 pm

It’s vacation time here at Beekeeper Labs, and that means that we’ve had other things on our minds than crossword puzzles.  (We find it hard to believe too, but apparently there *are* other things out there besides puzzles.  Who knew?)  This means that you *will* still get this week’s puzzle, but it will likely be a couple of days late.  Thanks in advance for your patience.

April 21, 2009

Puzzle #94: “Make Mine a Double

Filed under: Uncategorized — @ 10:01 pm


This puzzle was great fun to create. It’s another one of those where a constructor starts by saying “I’d probably never be able to find 5 entries like …”, and then goes on to prove himself wrong. Luckily, these sorts of puzzles usually end up being great fun to solve, even if they start out as nothing but an academic exercise. Try it for yourself and see if you agree. As usual, we provide you with two different sets of clues: the hard version, and the still-pretty-hard-but-not-quite-as-nasty version. (Sorry — there were just too many fun clue possibilities to go for the truly easy experience.) Let us know what you think and which version you preferred. We always like to see comments.

Title: Make Mine a Double
Difficulty (hard): Saturday
Download (hard): Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)
Difficulty (easy): Thursday
Download (easy): Across Lite or printable PNG

April 15, 2009

Puzzle #93: “Pink Slip”

Filed under: Uncategorized — @ 12:33 am


Here it is: April 15th. If you haven’t filed your taxes, go ahead and do that now. The puzzle will wait. Back with us? Good. You’ll be glad to know that while this puzzle may tax your brain and leave you strapped for answers, it is not a puzzle about taxes. We figure that, by now, you’re glad to leave that all behind.

As promised, we’re back to giving you puzzles in two different levels of difficulty. If you want the easier one, go to the bottom of this message and choose “Download: easy”. Otherwise, you can use any of the many other puzzle links to get to the harder version. Either way, we hope you enjoy your puzzle.

Title: Pink Slip
Difficulty (hard): Friday
Download (hard): Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)
Difficulty (easy): Wednesday
Download (easy): Across Lite or printable PNG

April 7, 2009

Puzzle #92: “Round the World”

Filed under: Uncategorized — @ 11:34 pm


A crossword constructor’s life is unpredictable. Sometimes a theme and puzzle will just jump out at you, and you can turn it into a solid fill in no time flat. Sometimes, you spend days trying to come up with the perfect inspiration, or you get the perfect inspiration, but the letters just don’t want to fit themselves into the grid. You find yourself tempted to accept UNAU or ELHI as a fill word just so that you can get that last corner to work. (But, of course, you don’t. You have your pride.)

This puzzle was one of the latter sort, but I think you’ll find it worth the trouble. The grid finally came through in style, and the clues provide a pretty fashionable counterpoint. However, after all of this, there just wasn’t any energy left to further tweak it so as to provide two different difficulty levels. This means that the serious mavens may find the puzzle a tiny bit easier than usual, and the casual solvers should be prepared to stretch themselves for a bit of a challenge. (If you try it within an interactive solving application, don’t be afraid to ask for solutions on a few critical clues. Hopefully, just a few hints will be enough to get you out of the woods.)

We should be back to providing split-level (hard/easy) puzzles next week.

Title: Round the World
Difficulty: Friday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

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