Brainteaser: can you solve this Sunday puzzle and prove your smarts?

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• Rules and what to know about this brainteaser
• Today’s eleven clues to solve
  • Tips for solving
• Last week’s puzzle: hidden-word trick and its solution
• Winner from last week
• New bonus puzzle and how to enter

This week’s Sunday Puzzle challenges listeners to think in threes—and in Bs. The game asks for answers made of three syllables, each beginning with the letter B. Use wordplay, imagination, and a quick ear for rhythm to untangle the clues below.

Rules and what to know about this brainteaser

Every answer is three syllables long. Each syllable must start with the letter B. Think of three short words or one three-syllable phrase whose initial sound in each syllable is B. Keep your responses concise and exact.

Today’s eleven clues to solve

1. Relatively large insect that can deliver a sting.
2. Tool used by a baseball hitter to strike the ball.
3. An indulgent, high-end soak in a bathtub.
4. A casual term for light-hued or pale eyes.
5. A span marked by a sudden surge in newborns.
6. A colloquial name for a deeply religious region of the country.
7. A big, clumsy but lovable sort of person.
8. An R&B singer-rapper who had a 1988 chart-topper, once married to Whitney Houston.
9. The regular companion of Yogi in classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
10. A phrase meaning an account that includes every tiny detail of a dispute.
11. A repetitive way to say “and so on” or “and the like.”

Tips for solving

• Break possible answers into three distinct syllables.
• Focus on words where each syllable begins with the same consonant sound.
• Sooner clues may suggest short words that combine fluidly.

Last week’s puzzle: hidden-word trick and its solution

We asked readers to spot a food hidden inside the name of a long-running movie series. Replace that food with a single letter and you arrive at another popular franchise. Correct solution: the transformation was Star Trek into Shrek.

Winner from last week

Jen Hart, Orangevale, California, submitted the winning answer and will be recognized on air.

New bonus puzzle and how to enter

Contributor Joseph Young, from St. Cloud, Minnesota, poses this challenge: name an animal whose first five letters form a place you might find it. The final four letters of that animal’s name spell a different animal—one that normally would not live in that place. Send your answer if you think you’ve got it.

Deadline to submit: Thursday, March 26 at 3 p.m. ET. Selected entrants get a chance to play the puzzle on air.