How to play Blip Hive
- Seven letters sit in a honeycomb. The yellow one in the middle is the centre letter.
- Make words of four letters or more. Every word must include the centre letter, and letters can be used more than once.
- Score 1 point for a four-letter word and 1 point per letter for longer ones. A pangram uses all seven letters and earns 7 more.
- Climb the ranks. Reaching Strong wins the day; Every word means you found them all.
Tips for a higher rank
- Hunt the pangram first. It's worth the most, and its letters hint at the rest of the hive.
- Work the endings. If the hive has E and D, or I, N and G, try every word again with -ED or -ING.
- Double letters are free. Letters repeat, so words like LEVEL or ADDED are fair game when the letters are there.
- Shuffle when stuck. A new arrangement breaks the patterns your eyes keep reading.
- Go letter by letter. Pick an outer letter and list every word that starts with it before moving on. Nudge 1 tells you how many are left for each.
Daily, practice and duels
The daily hive is the same for everyone and changes at midnight. Monday and Tuesday are easy, the midweek hives medium, Friday and Saturday hard. Use ‹ to replay hives you missed.
Practice builds a new hive whenever you like, at your level, and Challenge a friend sends your hive with your score to beat.
Also playing Spelling Bee?
Blip Hive works like The New York Times' Spelling Bee, with its own puzzles, bonus words and an unlimited practice mode. Stuck on today's NYT hive? Today's Spelling Bee hints start with a letter grid and end with the pangram. Prefer chains of words? Try Blip Box, our letter box game, or see all our daily word games.
Questions
Is Blip Hive free?
Yes. No account and no limit on practice hives. Your progress is saved in your own browser.
Which words count?
Everyday English words of four letters or more that use the centre letter. A real but rarer word still shows up as a bonus word, so it's never just marked wrong. Names, hyphenated words and crude words don't count.
How does scoring work?
A four-letter word is worth 1 point. Longer words score 1 point per letter. A pangram, a word that uses all seven letters, earns 7 extra points. Every hive has at least one.
What are the ranks?
Your rank grows with your share of the hive's points: Spark, Flicker, Beat, Pulse, Steady, Strong, Racing, Pounding, Full heart, Every word. Reaching Strong counts as a win for your streak.
Why is there never an S?
Hives skip the letter S so the puzzle is about finding new words, not adding plurals.
Is this the New York Times game?
No. Blip Hive is HintPulse's own game, with its own word list and puzzles. It uses the same idea as Spelling Bee: seven letters, a required centre letter, a pangram to find.
Word list: SCOWL, Copyright 2000-2016 Kevin Atkinson and contributors. Blip Hive is not affiliated with The New York Times.