Louisiana sets traps to catch aggressive Africanized bees

ARABI, La. – The residents of flood-damaged St. Bernard Parish, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, have a new concern: killer bees.

Agriculturalists began setting traps around a half-mile radius of a storm-wrecked home Monday that authorities have confirmed was infested with aggressive Africanized honey bees.

The bees probably were descendants of stowaways who arrived in New Orleans on a ship, the state agriculture department said.

Africanized bees are the result of an experiment to increase honey production in Brazil. A swarm of the small, aggressive bees escaped the lab in 1957 and headed north. When they mated with native strains, the offspring turned out to be as aggressive as the African parents.

They are sometimes called “killer bees” because their intense attacks can be fatal.