diff --git a/core-telemetry.cabal b/core-telemetry.cabal
--- a/core-telemetry.cabal
+++ b/core-telemetry.cabal
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 cabal-version: 1.18
 
--- This file has been generated from package.yaml by hpack version 0.35.1.
+-- This file has been generated from package.yaml by hpack version 0.35.2.
 --
 -- see: https://github.com/sol/hpack
 
 name:           core-telemetry
-version:        0.2.9.1
+version:        0.2.9.3
 synopsis:       Advanced telemetry
 description:    This is part of a library to help build command-line programs, both tools and
                 longer-running daemons.
diff --git a/lib/Core/Telemetry/Honeycomb.hs b/lib/Core/Telemetry/Honeycomb.hs
--- a/lib/Core/Telemetry/Honeycomb.hs
+++ b/lib/Core/Telemetry/Honeycomb.hs
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-}
 {-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
 {-# LANGUAGE GeneralisedNewtypeDeriving #-}
 {-# LANGUAGE ImportQualifiedPost #-}
@@ -71,7 +72,9 @@
     ) where
 
 import Codec.Compression.GZip qualified as GZip (compress)
+import Control.Concurrent (threadDelay)
 import Control.Concurrent.MVar (modifyMVar_)
+import Control.Exception.Base (Exception)
 import Control.Exception.Safe qualified as Safe (catch, finally, throw)
 import Control.Monad (forM_)
 import Core.Data.Clock (Time, getCurrentTimeNanoseconds, unTime)
@@ -350,10 +353,15 @@
     let b = Builder.lazyByteString x'
     Streams.write (Just b) o
 
+data HoneycombProblem = TransientRetry
+    deriving (Show)
+
+instance Exception HoneycombProblem
+
 postEventToHoneycombAPI :: IORef (Maybe Connection) -> Hostname -> ApiKey -> Dataset -> JsonValue -> IO ()
-postEventToHoneycombAPI r honeycombHost apikey dataset json = attempt False
+postEventToHoneycombAPI r honeycombHost apikey dataset json = attempt (0 :: Int)
   where
-    attempt retrying = do
+    attempt !retry = do
         Safe.catch
             ( do
                 c <- acquireConnection r honeycombHost
@@ -363,13 +371,15 @@
                 receiveResponse c handler
             )
             ( \(e :: SomeException) -> do
-                -- ideally we don't get here, but if the SSL connection collapses
-                -- we will. We retry /once/, and otherwise throw the exception out.
+                -- ideally we don't get here, but if the SSL connection
+                -- collapses we will, or if Honeycomb is having an outage we
+                -- will. We retry a maxium of 9 times (for a total backoff of
+                -- 1022 seconds plus individual connection durations).
                 cleanupConnection r
-                case retrying of
+                case retry > 9 of
                     False -> do
-                        putStrLn "internal: Reconnecting to Honeycomb"
-                        attempt True
+                        threadDelay (2 ^ retry * 1000000)
+                        attempt (retry + 1)
                     True -> do
                         putStrLn "internal: Failed to re-establish connection to Honeycomb"
                         Safe.throw e
@@ -403,14 +413,24 @@
                                 Just (JsonNumber 202) -> do
                                     -- normal response
                                     pure ()
+                                Just (JsonNumber 500) -> do
+                                    -- Honeycomb is experiencing a problem.
+                                    -- Note that this was a "500" /inside/ the
+                                    -- valid HTTP 200 payload.
+                                    putStrLn "internal: 500 returned from Honeycomb, retrying"
+                                    Safe.throw TransientRetry
+                                Just (JsonNumber codeN) -> do
+                                    -- this is more serious
+                                    putStrLn ("internal: " ++ show codeN ++ " returned from Honeycomb, discarding")
+                                    C.putStrLn body
                                 _ -> do
                                     -- some other status!
-                                    putStrLn "internal: Unexpected status returned;"
+                                    putStrLn "internal: Entirely unexpected response returned, discarding"
                                     C.putStrLn body
                             _ -> putStrLn "internal: wtf?"
                     _ -> do
-                        putStrLn "internal: Unexpected response from Honeycomb"
+                        putStrLn "internal: Completely unknown response from Honeycomb, discarding"
                         C.putStrLn body
             _ -> do
-                putStrLn "internal: Failed to post to Honeycomb"
+                putStrLn "internal: Utterly failed to post to Honeycomb"
                 debugHandler p i
diff --git a/lib/Core/Telemetry/Observability.hs b/lib/Core/Telemetry/Observability.hs
--- a/lib/Core/Telemetry/Observability.hs
+++ b/lib/Core/Telemetry/Observability.hs
@@ -168,6 +168,7 @@
 import Control.Concurrent.MVar (modifyMVar_, newMVar, readMVar)
 import Control.Concurrent.STM (atomically)
 import Control.Concurrent.STM.TQueue (writeTQueue)
+import Control.Exception qualified as Base (evaluate)
 import Control.Exception.Safe qualified as Safe
 import Core.Data.Clock
 import Core.Data.Structures (Map, emptyMap, insertKeyValue)
@@ -203,7 +204,7 @@
 -- a bit specific to Honeycomb's very limited data model, but what else is
 -- there?
 data MetricValue
-    = MetricValue JsonKey JsonValue
+    = MetricValue !JsonKey !JsonValue
     deriving (Show)
 
 {- |
@@ -661,22 +662,21 @@
         modifyMVar_
             v
             ( \datum -> do
-                let meta = attachedMetadataFrom datum
+                let !meta = attachedMetadataFrom datum
 
                 -- update the map
-                let meta' = List.foldl' f meta values
+                let !meta' = List.foldl' f meta values
 
                 -- replace the map back into the Datum (and thereby back into the
                 -- Context), updating it
-                let datum' =
-                        datum
-                            { attachedMetadataFrom = meta'
-                            }
-                pure datum'
+                Base.evaluate
+                    datum
+                        { attachedMetadataFrom = meta'
+                        }
             )
   where
     f :: Map JsonKey JsonValue -> MetricValue -> Map JsonKey JsonValue
-    f acc (MetricValue k@(JsonKey text) v) =
+    f !acc (MetricValue !k@(JsonKey text) !v) =
         if nullRope text
             then error "Empty metric field name not allowed"
             else insertKeyValue k v acc
@@ -711,12 +711,13 @@
         let v = currentDatumFrom context
         datum <- readMVar v
 
-        let meta = attachedMetadataFrom datum
+        let !meta = attachedMetadataFrom datum
 
         -- update the map
-        let meta' = List.foldl' f meta values
+        let !meta' = List.foldl' f meta values
         -- replace the map back into the Datum and queue for sending
-        let datum' =
+        datum' <-
+            Base.evaluate
                 datum
                     { spanNameFrom = label
                     , spanIdentifierFrom = Nothing
@@ -730,7 +731,7 @@
             writeTQueue tel (Just datum')
   where
     f :: Map JsonKey JsonValue -> MetricValue -> Map JsonKey JsonValue
-    f acc (MetricValue k@(JsonKey text) v) =
+    f !acc (MetricValue !k@(JsonKey text) !v) =
         if nullRope text
             then error "Empty metric field name not allowed"
             else insertKeyValue k v acc