Rhetoric and Bees

Last week (I think–I've been busy trying to catch up on my blogs, and haven't gotten any concrete dates right now) we talked briefly on the dissolution of rhetoric as literal translation. Memes, metaphors and clichés all came out, in true form that day, and it got me a thinkin' about a little project I've always wanted to produce, about an excitable character criticizing popular phrases.

Such as "You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar." I mean, why would bees be attracted to honey? Why not flowers? Is it because they are both foods and make the phrase easier to understand if one contrasts two foods? And why the heck would anyone want a bunch of bees in the first place?! They are horrible insects that sting and buzz and just happen to make a delicious byproduct. But if this person already has enough honey to lure bees to him/herself, then they obviously have honey to spare, and don't really need the bees after all.
Seems like rhetoric, taken in literal sense, can lead to both exciting new ways at looking at what we simply except as turns-of-phrase because we know that, contextually, they fit. But come on, who or what really is a gift-horse? Why can't I look them in the mouth? Is it a crappy gift, because the horse has no teeth? It's my horse, I can look anywhere I want in him. Well, let's not take that too literally, now.