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Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Honey Harvest

An old bee farm at the edge of the village · honey harvest open day · the bees were restless · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

Late August on the old bee farm at the edge of the village: the honey harvest open day. Since dawn the extractor had been humming in the honey house, visitors had strolled between the hives of the orchard and the meadow, and the whole farm smelled of warm wax and linden honey. The bees were restless in the heat and nobody wanted to crowd a hive: at the moment of the murder exactly one person was beside each of the three hives. Towards evening Vinzenz, the old beekeeper who had kept bees here for fifty years, was found dead in the barn, beside the cart loaded with honey frames. Eight people were on the farm: the four beekeepers and four visitors of the open day. One of them is the killer. Read every statement, find everyone’s square on the plan and unmask the murderer – alone with Vinzenz in the barn.

Rules

  1. Exactly one person was beside each beehive.
  2. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
  3. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the beehives, the apple trees, the flower beds, the shelves, the barrel, the table, the well, the planter, the counter, the cart, the crate) cannot be occupied; the chair, the benches, the hay bales and the doormat can.
  4. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “exactly one row north of him was a woman” = the person in the row directly above is a woman, in any column.
  5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Augusta (Vinzenz’s sister, runs the honey house): The chair was somewhere in her area.
  • Balthasar (Vinzenz’s nephew): The crate was somewhere in his row.
  • Cornelia (the apprentice): She was the only one beside a bench. She was beside a beehive.
  • Dagobert (migratory beekeeper, helping with the harvest): Exactly one row north of him was a woman.
  • Esteban (honey buyer from Valencia): A beehive was somewhere in his row.
  • Franziska (food blogger): She was with Cornelia.
  • Gerhard (the neighbouring farmer): The counter was somewhere in his column.
  • Hilde (retired schoolteacher): A bench was somewhere in her area.
  • Vinzenz (the old beekeeper): The victim. He was found in the Barn, beside the cart – alone with the murderer.

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