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Welcome to the BeeWord App

The BeeWord App is a word game. It will make you think and perhaps exercise your brain too!!
In addition to being a game that makes you think and helps build your vocabulary, the BeeWord App also provides for an educational opportunity to learn about bees and their place in our environment.

So why is the word bee associated with Spelling and Words?

The word bee, as used in spelling bee, is one of those Enlish language anomalies that has never been satisfactorialy explained. Bee as used in this context, refers to a community gathering of friends and neighbors who join together in a single activity, i.e. sewing, quilting, barn raising, thrashing, canning, etc., usually to help one person or a family.

In 1769, we find reference to a spinning bee. Other examples of the word bee between 1816 and 1836 are husking bee, apple bee and logging bee. The term spelling bee first appeared in print in 1875, although the term may have been commonly used previously.

The similarities between the bee with its industrious social nature, and the synergy of the social human gatherings might suggest a common use for the word bee. However, this idea has recently been rejected, and linguists have suggested bene, a Middle English word meaning a prayer or a favor as the source for the word bee. Been or bean, English dialect forms of the word bene refers to the voluntary help provided at community gatherings to accomplish a specific task. Bee may simply be a shortened form of been, but no one is entirely certain.