Why do bees make honey? So they have something to sustain themselves during winter of course! But since many commercial beekeepers need to sell the honey for profit, honey gets taken out of the hive and beekeepers must replace it with another food for the bees to survive on. Sometimes honey is replaced with High Fructose Corn Syrup. Research has shown that a bee's life is shortened about 4-5 days when fed a diet of HFCS. Not good! Even though HFCS may seem like a safe alternative, the original source --Corn-- is almost all genetically modified and treated with pesticides these days. It would be hard not believe that some trace of these pesticides helps to cause this. Sugar water seems to be a safer bet if you need to feed bees.