Beekeeper Crosswords Themed Puzzles from Beekeeper Labs

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)