2theadvocate.com | Suburban | St. Bernard abuzz on ‘killer bees’

St. Bernard abuzz on ‘killer bees’:

"A wave of comic relief washed over residents of flood-damaged St. Bernard Parish on Saturday.

After enduring back-to-back hurricanes, a housing shortage and an ongoing insurance crisis, reports that officials are now on the lookout for swarms of Africanized “killer bees” was too much for some residents.

“What’s coming next?” laughed Chris Cochran, 24, who lives on Estaban Street, a block from where a colony of the aggressive bees was found shortly before Christmas.

The swarm — the first in southeast Louisiana — chased away workers trying to demolish a storm-damaged home at 2225 Estaban St., then routed a beekeeper.

Officials from the parish Mosquito Control Department were summoned. The pests were exterminated as residents remained indoors, Cochran recalled. “They wouldn’t let anybody outside,” he said of the Mosquito Control authorities.



Cochran, the single parent of a 4-year-old boy, said he has not seen any of the newly placed official bee traps. “I haven’t really looked for them,” he said."