This bee is busy, and brilliant!

It was supposed to end at around 5 pm but went on much beyond midnight. We are not talking about an entertainment show or a musical concert. We are talking about a spelling competition. This year, 562 spellers competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington DC, and after a gruelling 20 rounds, the eight left at the end were named co-champions. Sohum Sukhatankar, 13, of Dallas, Texas; Abhijay Kodali, 12, of Flower Mound, Texas; Rohan Raja, 13, of Irving, Texas; Saketh Sundar, 13, of Clarksville, Maryland; Christopher Serrao, 13, of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey; Rishik Gandhasri, 13, of San Jose, California; Erin Howard, 14, of Huntsville, Alabama; and Shruthika Padhy, 13, of Cherry Hill, New Jersey are the eight co-champions who closed out the bee by spelling 47 consecutive words correctly. All the eight winners received $50,000 in cash and a new, custom-designed trophy, because Scripps simply could not come up with words difficult enough to challenge them. In the history of Scripps Spelling Bee, the contest had seen only a handful of co-champions—just six pairs—and it had never had so much as a three-way tie. But these eight champs changed that. The spellers — all of whom are 15 or younger but have not passed eighth grade — come from all 50 US states, as well as several territories and other countries including the Bahamas, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea. The bee, established in 1925, is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scripps Company and is held every year during the week following Memorial Day weekend. So can you spell these winning words? Auslaut Meaning: Final sound in a word or syllable; end position of a sound in a word or syllable Erysipelas Meaning: an acute febrile disease associated with intense edematous local inflammation of the skin and subcutaneous tissues caused by a hemolytic streptococcus Bougainvillea Meaning: Any of a genus (Bougainvillaea) of the four-o’clock family of ornamental tropical American woody vines and shrubs with brilliant purple or red floral bracts Aiguillette Meaning: A shoulder cord worn by designated military aides Pendeloque Meaning: a diamond or other gemstone cut in the form of a pear-shaped brilliant with a table; a usually pear-shaped glass pendant used for ornamenting a lamp or chandelier Palama Meaning: The webbing on the feet of aquatic birds Cernuous Meaning: Inclining or nodding. Also pendulous, drooping Odylic Meaning: Of or relating to odyl (a force or natural power formerly held by some to reside in certain individuals and things and to underlie hypnotism and magnetism and some other phenomena) Fun Fact A traffic light to keep track of time Spellers get two minutes to spell a word. They view a monitor with a traffic light to keep track of time. For the first 75 seconds, the traffic light is green, followed by 15 seconds of yellow. At the 30-second mark, the light turns red and a countdown clock appears.