Youâre trying to guess closest to the number of jelly beans in a jar. You arenât allowed to take them out and count them, so you need to be tricky. The best you can do is to estimate. You can do this by assuming that the jelly beans are fairly evenly distributed within the jar, and employing some basic geometry. First the height and circumference of the jar must be determined, using jelly beans as the unit of measurement. The volume of the jelly beans can then be calculated using a mathematical formula. Bean Counting