Concerning some of the bizarre stuff that bees appear to be attracted to - I'm reminded of thoughts that occurred to be based on past observations, and in one case, a bit of skepticism.

Despite putting out ample water for them, a neighbor reported that my bees were hanging around his covered hot tub, specifically trying to get in via the center seam (it was a solid foam cover that folded back on itself).  I reported this to one of my mentors who said, "yeah, they love chemicals ... just put a drop or two of clorox into your watering trays ...they'll love it". 

Another item: the research project at WSU in conjunction with Paul Stamets re mushrooms that may be beneficial to bees: I learned that the genesis of the project came from Stamets observing honeybees being attracted to his highly moist wood mulch piles - of either spent mushroom spore, or newly innoculated piles (I forget which).  This intrigued me, being already knowledgeable about medicinal properties of mushrooms; but my first thought was, "gee, maybe they were just attracted to the moisture ... or the odor of the fungi."

So now reading the posts re bees being attracted to animal blood, offal, etc. I wonder if what's really going on is that the bees are attracted by moisture, especially aromatic moisture, since smell is one of their prime methods of perception and communication?  Nutritional benefits of same purely coincidental?  An Occam's razor type of explanation to these bizarre observations. 

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