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Bees Swarm After Mayor Recommends Bee Book
By Associated Press

SHREVEPORT, La. - It was a bzzzy sort of day in Shreveport. A burst can of soda brought a swarm of bees into a shopping cart outside a supermarket the day the mayor announced that "The Secret Life of Bees" will be Shreveport's first citywide reading project.

The real bees formed a huge circle around the queen until Gail Boynton and her husband, beekeepers from the Blanchard area, suited up and collected them. Customers and employees of the Kroger grocery store stood and watched.

"It looks like a spacesuit - is someone going up?" joked customer Zetta Holden.

Boynton said the bees were attracted to the sugar in the Dr. Pepper.

"This is swarming season and when the queen moves, they move with the queen," she said.

"The Secret Life of Bees," by Sue Monk Kidd, has been another sort of phenomenon: it's been on one bestseller list or another fairly steadily since early 2003.

On Tuesday, Mayor Kenneth Hightower announced that Shreveport will join other cities in encouraging all residents to read a different book each month. Several local book clubs are sponsoring the effort, dubbed "One Book One City: Shreveport - On the Same Page."

To help in the local effort, area library branches and book stores will be stocking an additional 200 copies of "The Secret Life of Bees," said Signora Thomas of the Wisdom Seekers Book Club.

Area residents are encouraged to read the book, organize discussion groups with family and friends, co-workers, church groups and to join other meetings that will be scheduled this summer by the One Book One City planning committee.