> Does anyone know if it used to be 
> common practice to feed salt to bees?

As Sam Cooke sang, "Dunno much about history..." but I do know that bees are
pretty consistently fond of salt licks placed for the use of cattle and/or
deer after rain wets the salt.

When providing a water source for bees in an urban or suburban setting,
adding about a 15 - 20 grams of salt per 5 gallons of water does seem to
attract bees, making them ignore an identical water source a few yards away
containing unfiltered city water, but a water source with a small
recirculating pump to disturb the water and create a plume of water vapor
was the most attractive source of all, regardless of salt content in the
water.  

I'd want everyone to take the results described above with a grain of salt,
as these were short-term tests, and only 4 rooftop apiaries were tested, the
largest being only 10 hives.  I would not call this enough data to do more
than "suggest", certainly not "prove".

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