ACROSTIC — Today’s passage is by a food writer, Hattie Ellis, from a book called “Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee.” The particular excerpt we have is very horticultural in nature, which is right up my alley, but I found getting started difficult and initially made a lot of mistakes. I solved this sitting outside last Wednesday, on a hazy evening while being halfheartedly bombarded by mosquitoes — even they were listless in the heat.

I had “lifetime” for LIFESPAN, “endomorph” for ENDOTHERM, “slothful” for WRATHFUL and “cricket” for STINGER — and those were four of the first six entries I filled in, so my passage was a scribbly mess — at least NOSE JOB and IMPATIENS held up. I got on the right track with LONGHAIR, INTREPID, NONPROFIT and AGNOSTIC, and everything flowed from there. I am a huge fan of the HIVE MIND and this passage only added to my fondness — bee society is smart and sophisticated, and it makes perfect sense that bees would go about their days in an orderly fashion. Did you know that bees are thermogenic? There were quite a few theme clues in here from Team Cox/Rathvon, but I didn’t get to them until late.