About Spelling Bee Word Game
Spelling Bee is a free daily word puzzle game: seven letters sit in a honeycomb, and your job is to make as many words as you can from them. The catch is that every word must use the gold center letter, and each hive hides at least one pangram — a word that uses all seven letters.
It's the perfect coffee-break spelling bee puzzle. There's no timer and no way to lose, so you can dip in for five minutes or keep chipping away at the hive all day. Each word you find pushes you up a ladder of ranks from Beginner to Genius, and the dedicated few who find every single word earn the title of Queen Bee.
A new hive appears every day at midnight, and everyone gets the same letters, so you can compare scores with friends and on the daily leaderboard. Want more? Switch to Practice for hundreds of extra hives, then check yesterday's answers to see the words that got away.
How to play Spelling Bee
- 1
Build a word
Type on your keyboard or tap the hexagons to spell a word of at least four letters. Every word must contain the gold center letter, and you can reuse any letter as many times as you like — balloon is fine in a hive that contains B, A, L, O and N.
- 2
Submit it
Press Enter (or tap Enter). Valid words are added to your list and your points go up. If a word is too short, misses the center letter or isn't in our word list, you'll see a short message and can try again — there's no penalty for wrong guesses.
- 3
Hunt for the pangram
Think of it as a pangram game within the game: each hive has at least one pangram that uses all seven letters. Pangrams score their length plus a 7-point bonus, so they're usually the biggest single find of the day.
- 4
Climb the ranks
Your rank is based on the share of the hive's total points you've earned: Beginner, Good Start, Moving Up, Good, Solid, Nice, Great, Amazing and Genius (70%). Tap the rank bar to see exactly how many points each rank needs.
- 5
Finish for today — or keep going
Reaching Genius submits your score to today's leaderboard automatically. You can also press Finish for today at any time to submit early. Either way you can keep playing the hive afterward to chase Queen Bee.
Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Letter keys | Type a word (tap the hexagons on touch screens) |
| Enter | Submit the word |
| Backspace | Delete the last letter |
| Space | Shuffle the outer letters |
| Esc | Clear the word |
| Rank bar | Open the rankings and point thresholds |
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Spelling Bee tips and strategy
Start with the easy endings
Common endings unlock lots of words at once. If the hive has E and D, try adding -ED to words you've found; with I, N and G, try -ING. The same goes for prefixes like RE-, UN- and DE-.
Shuffle when you're stuck
Press Space or the shuffle button to rearrange the outer letters. Seeing the letters in a new order breaks your brain out of a rut and often reveals a word that was hiding in plain sight.
Find the pangram early
Pangrams are worth a lot of points. Look for long words that combine the hive's rarer letters, and remember that doubled letters are allowed. Once you have one pangram, check whether a related form (another tense or ending) is a second one.
Work letter by letter
Pick one outer letter and try to start words with it, then move to the next. The Hints grid shows how many words remain for each starting letter and length, which tells you exactly where to dig.
Use the two-letter hints sparingly
The two-letter list (for example CO-4) is a strong nudge. Try the letter grid first, and save the two-letter starts for when you're one or two words short of the next rank.
Think in word families
Found PLAY? Try PLAYER, REPLAY and PLAYED. Found LIGHT? Try LIGHTEN and LIGHTING. Words that share a root often share a hive, so every find is a clue to the next one.
Come back later
The hive stays open all day and your progress is saved on your device. Stepping away for an hour is one of the most reliable ways to spot the words you couldn't see before.
How scoring and ranks work
- 4-letter words: 1 point each.
- 5 letters or longer: 1 point per letter (a 7-letter word scores 7).
- Pangrams: their length plus a 7-point bonus (a 7-letter pangram scores 14).
Ranks are a percentage of the hive's maximum score, so they mean the same thing on an easy day and a hard one: Good Start (2%), Moving Up (5%), Good (8%), Solid (15%), Nice (25%), Great (40%), Amazing (50%) and Genius (70%). Find every answer and you're crowned Queen Bee.
Our answer lists use everyday vocabulary, so the words you're asked to find are ones most people know. If you enter a real but rarer word that isn't an answer, we still accept it as a bonus word and list it separately — it just doesn't score points, which keeps the ranks and leaderboard fair for everyone.
How our daily Spelling Bee works
Every day at local midnight a new hive unlocks, and everyone around the world plays the same seven letters. Hives never include the letter S, so you won't pad your score with simple plurals — every word has to be earned.
Your daily score is submitted to the leaderboard once: automatically when you reach Genius, or when you press Finish for today. After that you can keep playing to improve your rank and find every word. Tap Yesterday to see the previous day's full answer list, including the pangrams, with the words you found ticked off.
The Practice tab gives you hundreds of extra hives that don't count toward the leaderboard. You can reveal the answers whenever you like, which makes practice mode a great way to learn the word patterns that crop up again and again.
Where the honeycomb puzzle comes from
Letter-wheel puzzles, where you make as many words as you can from a small set of letters with one required letter, have run in newspapers for decades. The seven-letter honeycomb version with ranks and pangrams was popularized by The New York Times, which introduced it in its magazine in 2014 and brought it online in 2018.
If you enjoy Spelling Bee, try Anagrams for a fast, timed challenge, the daily Word Guess, or Word Scramble. You'll find the full collection in our word games.
Frequently asked questions
What is a pangram in Spelling Bee?
A pangram is a word that uses every one of the seven hive letters at least once. Every hive has at least one. Pangrams earn their normal points plus a 7-point bonus, and they're highlighted in gold in your word list.
Why was my word not accepted?
Words must be at least four letters long, include the center letter and use only the letters in the hive. Proper nouns, hyphenated words and abbreviations aren't allowed. If a real word is rejected, it's simply not in our word list.
What are bonus words?
Bonus words are real but less common words that fit the hive but aren't on the answer list. We accept them and show them in their own section, but they don't score points, so ranks and leaderboard scores stay comparable for everyone.
What does Genius mean in Spelling Bee?
Genius is the top rank, reached when you've earned 70% of the hive's possible points. Reaching it submits your score to the daily leaderboard, and you can keep playing to find every word and become Queen Bee.
What time does the new Spelling Bee come out?
A new hive unlocks every day at midnight in your local time zone. Your progress on the current hive is saved automatically, so you can close the page and come back later.
Are there hints if I get stuck?
Yes. The Hints panel shows how many words are left for each starting letter and word length, plus counts for each two-letter start. Hints never change your score or rank, and there's no penalty for using them.
Can I see yesterday's answers?
Yes. On the Daily tab, press Yesterday to see the previous hive's complete answer list and pangrams, with the words you found ticked.
Is this Spelling Bee game free?
Yes, it's completely free with no download or account needed, and it works on phones, tablets and computers. Play the daily hive, then keep going with unlimited practice hives.