Africanized honeybees found in Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. – Nearly 30 years after a TV movie showed the Superdome saving New Orleans from “killer bees,” Louisiana has joined other southern-tier states with confirmed sightings of the aggressive insects.

Bees trapped in June near Rodessa, about 35 miles northwest of Shreveport, were confirmed as the Africanized variety Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s bee research center, state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom said.

The insects are considerably less dangerous than thought in 1976, when “The Savage Bees” first aired. In the movie, the city is saved from a swarm of bees when the insects are driven into the Superdome, where chilly air conditioning renders them motionless.

Africanized bees are the result of an experiment to increase honey production in Brazil.