Betancur Studios: All games
Icon: a beehive nestled in a hedge, with a red flag

Little Hives
part of the Little series

A hedge to prune. Mind the bees.

Every square is a bush, and some bushes hide a beehive. Prune every bush that has none: where a bush was, the lawn says how many hives are around it. No board ever needs a guess; every hive can be worked out from the numbers.

Download on the App Store

I keep this hedge. It got away from me.

The gardener, a hedgehog with a straw hat and hedge shears
A half-pruned garden, with the gardener pointing at two bushes that are safeA finished garden in flower, with butterflies over itA finished garden in winter, with a pond, a gnome and a fountain on the lawn

Three rules

  1. Prune every bush that hides no hive. Cut into a hive and the bees complain.
  2. Where a bush was, the lawn shows how many hives are in the eight squares around it.
  3. The first cut is always safe, and no board ever needs a guess.
The game on iPad: an Expert garden half pruned

As big as your screen

Three levels. Beginner is the classic 9×9; Intermediate and Expert are cut to fit the screen, so nothing ever scrolls or gets cropped. An iPad gets a bigger garden than an iPhone.

For a jar of honey I tell you which bush is certain, and why. I never look inside one for you.