Beekeeper Crosswords

Puzzle #140: “Building Up Business”

keeper — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:20:13 +0000

Well, here we are with puzzle #140. As previously announced, we are now moving from our “every week (almost) without fail” publishing schedule to a “when we’re inspired” schedule. This will almost definitely mean that puzzles appear less often, but it will give us more time to undertake new and exciting projects. All told, the collected puzzles produced over the last 2.5 years total about 4 man-months of construction time; somewhere between 10 and 50 hours of solving enjoyment (depending upon your solving speed); and nearly 5000 black squares. All in all, not a puny effort.

Thanks for joining us along the way, and we hope to see you around in the future.

Title: Building Up Business
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Announcement: Suspending weekly updates

keeper — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:17:47 +0000

I’m sorry to have to announce it, but after the next puzzle (#140), Beekeeper Crosswords will be going on hiatus. We’ve had a marvelous time, but after more than 2 1/2 years, we’re finding that other endeavors have to take priority. (When we started, Beekeeper Labs was a start-up in search of a product. Now we’re supporting 5 apps and working on new ones, and the support time is starting to cut into our crossword time. Since we aren’t willing to give up supporting our software, something else has to slip.)

We aren’t going away entirely. You’ll still have a stock of 140 old puzzles to revisit, and we hope to post new ones on occasion. We just won’t stick to a fixed schedule any longer. If you want to be automatically notified of new postings, we recommend that you look at our RSS feed. It’ll keep you up to date without you having to do any extra work.

You’ve been a great audience. Good night; thanks for coming; and don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Puzzle #139: “Risky Business”

keeper — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:36:27 +0000

Title: Risky Business
Difficulty: Thursday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Puzzle #138: “The Wrath of….”

keeper — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:22:24 +0000

What’s that you say? Saint Patrick’s Day? Green Beer? Erin’s gold bra? Sorry, boyo, this ain’t no parade — it’s a crossword. We considered giving you your annual dose of hearts, stars, moons, clovers, horseshoes, klein bottles, and whatever else that danged leprechaun is lacing our cereal with these days, but we decided that by the time this puzzle came out you’d have already had your fill and would be nursing the hangover. Thus, this puzzle is almost entirely Irish-free, though we did let a few Scotsmen wander through to provide some local color.

Title: The Wrath of….
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Puzzle #137: “Medicine Show”

keeper — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:05:39 +0000

Let it never be said that we here at Beekeeper Labs never take you anywhere. Last week we went to the disco. This week, it’s off to see our friendly snake oil salesman at the traveling medicine show. It’s guaranteed to cure what ails you, or you’ll get back double what we charged for the puzzle. (Warranty void in some states. Always read the fine print even when it doesn’t say anything useful. Fnord.)

Title: Medicine Show
Difficulty: Thursday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Puzzle #136: “Dance Fever”

keeper — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:30:42 +0000

As promised last week, we have fixed all problems (technical and otherwise) which were preventing us from supplying you with a tasty weekly crossword. We’ve been scheming all week to try to come up with a splendiferous theme to justify the wait. What we came up with, however, is mostly just….odd. However, it does contain your RDA of bad puns, obscure references, geography lessons, FLAs (we don’t like three letter abbrevs much, but we can groove on four), and such like.

Title: Dance Fever
Difficulty: Thursday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

No puzzle for Feb 25

keeper — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:03:29 +0000

Sorry folks, but it looks like there won’t be a puzzle this week. Things were going well, and this weeks puzzle was 80% finished, when I found that there was a fundamental, unfixable flaw in the theme. We care about quality here at Beekeeper Crosswords, even more than we care about our schedule, so we’re going to drop back 10 yards and try to come up with a particularly good puzzle for next week, rather than make you suffer with a broken or rushed puzzle this week.

Puzzle #135: “Chill”

keeper — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:18:14 +0000

Perhaps this week’s puzzle is inauspiciously named. After all, it has been quite chilly enough in this part of Western PA without any encouragement from your faithful puzzle provider. Nonetheless, it is what it is — and what it is is a reasonably easy, and yet charmingly annoying Wednesday-level puzzle. So put on a warm jacket, brew yourself a nice cup of tea, and prepare to “chill”.

Title: Chill
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Puzzle #134: “That is to Say…”

keeper — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:54:17 +0000

Title: That is to say….
Difficulty: Thursday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)

Puzzle #133: Old Uncle Fred’s Tech Support

keeper — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:12:26 +0000

When my family heard I’d been having computer trouble, they immediately sent Uncle Fred to take a look. You see, Fred’s ’bout 90 years old and they say he can fix anything. If you’ve got a shotgun with a bad barrel, he can fix ‘er up good as new. If you’ve got a ‘57 Chevy with a bad carburetor, Fred’ll have it purrin’ like a kitten. If those dang kids have broken the dial on your TV set, he’ll jigger up a replacement, no problem. I’m not so sure he’ll do as well with my Windows PC, though. You see, last I heard, Fred still thinks a vacuum tube is an attachment for his Electrolux….

Title: Old Uncle Fred’s Tech Support
Difficulty: Thursday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)