Introduction
Beehive Solitaire is a simple single-player card game that requires a little strategy and some luck to win.
The game’s name likely comes from the initial layout of the cards, which supposedly resembles a beehive or honeycomb.
Frequent solitaire players on Reddit critique the game for being overly reliant on randomness, lacking meaningful decisions, and not having enough depth or complexity to be considered a truly strategic solitaire game.
Goal
The objective of Beehive Solitaire is to group all 52 cards from the deck into stacks of four cards of the same rank. Once a stack of four matching cards is formed, it is removed from the table. The player wins when all cards have been cleared from the table in this manner.
Setting Up
To set up a game of Beehive Solitaire:
- Shuffle a standard 52-card deck
- Deal out 10 cards face up in a stack. This is the Beehive.
- Deal out 6 more cards face up in two rows of 3 cards each. This is the Flower Garden
- Place the remaining cards face down as the draw pile
Making Moves
On your turn, you can make moves following these priorities:
- Match and stack cards of the same rank within the Flower Garden. When you form a complete stack of 4, remove it.
- Fill empty spots in the Flower Garden with the top card from the Beehive stack.
- Turn over 3 cards from the draw pile to start a discard pile. Play the top card of the discard pile to the Flower Garden if possible.
- Once the Beehive is empty, fill empty spots in the Flower Garden from the top of the discard pile.
- When the draw pile is exhausted, turn over the discard pile to reuse it.
Beehive Solitaire Rules
The essential rules of the game are as follows:
- Only cards in the Flower Garden can be stacked and removed. Beehive cards are played but not stacked directly.
- Empty spots in the Flower Garden are always filled from the Beehive first before turning to the draw pile.
- Turn over cards from the draw pile in increments of 3 to form the discard pile.
- Play the top discard card to the Flower Garden if possible, otherwise, turn over 3 more from the draw pile.
- You can reuse the discard pile once the draw pile runs out.
Ending
You win Beehive Solitaire if you clear the table by stacking all 52 cards into sets of 4 by rank. You lose if you cannot make any more moves.
Strategy
Below you can find some strategy tips to increase your chances of winning.
- Prioritize clearing cards from the Flower Garden first before moving Beehive cards. The more open spaces you create, the more options you have for plays.
- Try to avoid covering cards in the Flower Garden that you may need later. Think ahead before stacking cards.
- Save high-value cards in the Beehive for as long as possible. They are more likely to match open cards in the late game.
- Pay attention to the suits of the cards in the discard pile. You may be able to predict what’s coming up when reusing it.
