A new “I Love Bees” mailing, over twenty years after the first one

Twenty-one years ago to the day, ARGNet received a jar of honey in the mail. It came from a relatively new San Francisco based apiary, bearing a relatively simple log for “Margaret’s Honey”. Curiously, there were a series of understandably sticky letters shoved into the jar…unscrambling them spelled out the name of a website. After investigating the site for a while, ARGNet was pretty confident this was the launch of an alternate reality game. So, the ARG was given a name – SPiDeR, after a warning message that appeared on the site: System Peril Distributed Reflex. That name didn’t quite stick (pun intended), with fans preferring to call the game The Haunted Apiary.

Most reading this right now would likely know the game better by the website’s name, scrambled up in that vintage jar of honey…I Love Bees. Yesterday, I received a new package in the mail from the Bay Area…only this time, it wasn’t tied to a rogue AI from the future that hacked a small business’ website. At least, not directly. It was from fans of the game, looking to commemorate a community that just got old enough to drink in the United States, if it were a person. And in that spirit, I’m going to set aside ARGNet’s traditional format and engage in a more personal reflection on I Love Bees and its legacy. Because, unsurprisingly: I still love bees.

Steve Peters and the Inside Scoop on the Honey Jar
When that initial jar of honey arrived, I wasn’t running ARGNet. It would be another three years until I would write my first article for the site, let alone take over its operations. Instead, ARGNet’s founder and first owner Steve Peters was the one to find himself in this particular sticky situation. As Peters recalls:

[The letters] were definitely in there in the honey…I got a strainer, put it in the sink, and poured the honey through it. I first spelled “Bee Olives” then “Obese Evil” before finding “I Love Bees” and trying dot com…something like that. I know it was my third try. And [the site] looked so cheap it took me a second to realize.

Little did I know how much that weird honey jar would change the course of my life and career. Funny how that happens.

Peters eventually turned over ownership of the site so he could work as an ARG creator at 42 Entertainment free from potential conflicts, and recently reunited with I Love Bees‘ lead designer Elan Lee on Exploding Kittens as the company’s Community Projects Manager.

Falling Into a Honey Trap Through the US Presidential Elections
My own personal introduction to I Love Bees came through the 2004 Presidential Debates. I was a college students, and my roommates and I were nerdy enough to throw a debate watching party in our apartment for the third and final televised debate of the election cycle, in Tempe Arizona.

While watching the debates, I noticed some college students holding up posters with a picture of a cartoon bee on it. I didn’t know quite what to make of it and assumed it must have been some kind of environmental protest, until an article in Wired explained what happened, later that week. As Daniel Terdiman explained, “an out-of-place poster with a large cartoon image of a grinning bee appeared on the wall of a room packed with spinmeisters brandishing Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards signs. Most people who saw it on CNN that night probably didn’t even notice it, but fans of a game called I Love Bees knew it was a shout out to them from a team of the game’s players at Arizona State University.”

That led me down the rabbit hole, and I binged the game’s central narrative, an almost six hour long audio drama exploring the Halo universe through multiple perspectives unlocked through fans answering hundreds of payphone calls around the country. I only followed along with the alternate reality game passively, but was so transfixed with the concept of ARGs that I started getting more active in the space with projects like Last Call Poker and Cathy’s Book, until I finally started writing about ARGs myself. Six years after Wired’s initial piece about I Love Bees that lured me into the field, I had the distinct pleasure of helping launch the site’s Decode blog, where syndicated ARGNet articles helped expand the site’s ARG coverage.

Amusingly, while I didn’t think anyone I knew at the time was an active player of I Love Bees, years later I learned that one of my college friends helped unlock some of the clips I enjoyed so much by helping “enhottenate Axons” (answering random payphones) in the Philadelphia area. He’s since gone into game development, himself.

Weephun and The Sleeping Princess’ Betrayal
One of the pivotal moments of I Love Bees happened during one of those Axon enhottenation calls. Preston Thorne, going by the in-game callsign of “Lieutenant Weephun”, answered a payphone call for I Love Bees. And while many of those calls were met with automated messages on the other end, Thorne received a call from The Operator (voiced by Kristen Rutherford), trying to track down The Sleeping Princess. And during that call, he told the Operator exactly where to find her. The move surprised the game’s developers, leading them to revamp the story and adjust to players’ unexpected decisions.

Years later, Thorne reflected on that experience in an article on ARGNet, explaining:

[I] made sure to apologize profusely to the writers who ended up pulling quite a few all-nighters on my behalf. But in the end, I don’t think I’ve talked with a single person (writers and all of 42 included) who didn’t think that the story and experience as a whole was greatly added to by my actions…

I Love Bees was an early example of alternate reality games not just providing the illusion of interactivity by guiding players through an experience on rails…it was a game that embraced its potential to be guided by player actions and decisions.

I Love Bees: A History That Lives Beyond Its Archives
Earlier this year, a collective of fans under the umbrella of the Center for Immersive Arts brought back the Unfiction Forums as static archive, after years of the site being offline. Because of that, the I Love Bees discussion forums are back online. And while ILoveBees.com itself is no longer online, fans have archived that content at ILoveBees.co, with archives of the audio drama also existing a number of places online – including the recently launched “rewatch podcast” Axons Online.

And that archival means people can pore through the archives of a project from 21 years ago and experience a taste of what those of us who were there saw…whether that’s a “casual” listen through the 5+ hours of audio drama, or listening to players checking in during the game’s many phone calls. But Axons Online also asked former players to share their own stories, as a form of oral history. Ariock and Brian Enigma already shared their memories of I Love Bees…not as an archival of assets, but of personal stories.

And those stories are why I’m writing this more personal reflection on my time with I Love Bees and what it’s led to, from a number of different perspectives. Because I Love Bees veterans Ariock and hmrpita were the ones who sent me this package, with a heartfelt reminder:

A poetic charge to remember I Love Bees, on this anniversary of the game’s launch

Other than pestering Steve Peters for his memories of trying to strain honey through a sieve to solve an unclued anagram that could have spelled out “BELIEVE SO”, I only resurfaced stories from I Love Bees that have already been told here. In part because I’m spending the day at a Stray Kids concert with a friend I made through alternate reality games (and yes, I made a puzzle card to give away as freebies to attendees), but also because I’d like to hear your stories in your own words.

So, that’s my encouragement. Look back up at that first link in the article. Thunderclap 8 said, “I’d love to hear from other Beekeepers along the way.” I agree wholeheartedly in that sentiment. So whether it’s here in the comments section or on the many social corners of the internet that didn’t exist when I Love Bees took place, share your stories about I Love Bees. Not the narrative or mechanics of the game, but your personal experiences with it. Because that’s what helps keep the community for an experience alive for this long.

And yes, I realize many of you reading this weren’t around for I Love Bees. I’m trying not to realize that some of you may not have even been born yet. I was only just finding my footing in the community myself at the time. But think of what stories you’re sharing for people reflecting on modern day ARGs, a decade or two in the future. And help the memories of these games be more than a series of online assets.