A science show on our canadian radio network called "Quirks and Quarks" had
an interview on Saturday with an entomologist studying a tropical moth that
can drink (while simultaneously excreting) 60 times its body weight in water
in an hour. It does this to extract a small quantity of valuable salt.
I have often noticed the bees flying to spots where my cows salt licks WERE
(they seem to prefer this to the higher salt content of the blocks
themselves) and also to puddles of runoff from the manure pile. I assume
the bees are collecting salt because they have clean sources of water
available at closer distances. The salt licks are also frequently visited
by swallowtail butterflies.
I have one lobster fisherman living close to a beeyard who complains that he
has to search through his oilclothes before he puts them on in the morning
because the bees swarm all over them when he hangs them up when he gets home.
We often assume, incorrectly IMHO, that honey and pollen and water and
propolis are the only things that bees collect.