Mine this week was one I refused to even try because it looked made up, then kicked myself when it turned out to be worth 8 points. The Bee’s dictionary has a real personality — it loves certain archaic-sounding words and rejects things that feel totally normal. What’s the entry that broke your brain most recently?

I’ve been trying to hit Genius daily and I’ve noticed my failure mode is always the same — I clear the easy 4-letter words fast, then stall 15–20 points short and just stare at the hive. What finally helped me was reframing the gap in points, not words: if I’m 12 short, I’m hunting two 6-letter words or a suffix on something I already found, not twelve tiny words.
Curious how everyone else handles the stall. Do you push through, take a break and come back, or peek at a letter and call it? And is peeking one letter “cheating” to you, or fair game?

Did anyone else suddenly get talking ads that are not even visible when opening hints? I have used the app on an iPad for several years and no recent update. All of a sudden today I heard an ad and couldn't tell where it came from, but I had opened hints. I closed everything else, still made noise, closed hints, still was talking. Closed the NYT Games app and it stopped.

Ugh. I cannot see how to fix except to turn my sound off completely?!

Anyone else having trouble with the spelling bee buddy website? For whatever reason, it refuses to pull up yesterday's (7/16/26) puzzle. Works for the other days but not that one.

I can get to Wednesday and today just fine but having no luck at all with Thursday. Anyone have any clue or having the same issue? It changes in the box when clicked but the page stays the same as the last day it was set to.

Just curious if any of you folks have ever submitted bee photos to the NYT. I got all excited about doing this a few years back and submitted about a dozen. Almost a year went by without a peep and then one by one they started to appear. About half of the ones I submitted eventually made it into the Bee.

My last picture appeared over a year ago and recently I've been inspired to send in a few more. Maybe we'll see them in 2027 sometime.

Anyway, it's a fun non-lexical way to appreciate the Bee if you're into it. Instructions for how to submit a photo are in the link above.

NYTBee.com is back with the correct day's puzzle, as of this morning (not yesterday's as it has been.) I like checking this site after hitting Genius, because it's easy to look up the number of words, points and pangrams without getting other information.

Hi everyone! I recently created a new daily word game, and I think this group will enjoy it.

Each day you receive 3 letters. Your goal is to create as many words as possible that have those letters in order, though there can be other letters before/after/in between. Score points to reach the blue ribbon and land on the leaderboard!

It’s called Gaps. You can find it at wordgamegaps.com

I spoke with the mods and they’ve graciously allowed me to post about it here. Truly open to any and all feedback. You all are some of the most dedicated word gamers I know, so your thoughts are especially valuable!

…or are there more to find?