Give and man a fish, or teach a man to fish? You know which is the correct answer. The easy way to get a MS patient the bees he/she needs on a long-term basis to teach them to keep bees themselves in an observation hive. This avoids all the liability issues, avoids "practicing medicine without a license", avoids all the ethical/legal problems of charging money for something that should be free, and makes less work for the you, the beekeeper. Certainly a few jars of bees up front are not a big problem, and one should verify that bee stings are having a positive impact before getting ahead of oneself, but one does not want to turn this into a long-term obligation for either party. Here's what I have done: a) Make a gift of an observation hive, or convince the patient to buy one. Stock it with a queen that you would otherwise kill and a frame of bees. A slow-laying older queen is an ADVANTAGE in an observation hive. :) b) Rig up a stand-alone feeder assembly that can be placed "down the entrance tube", between the hive and the exit. c) Between the hive and the feeder assembly, rig up a "trap" to catch bees, one or two at a time. Using off the shelf plumbing components (appropriate for those who use clear flexible hose as an exit tube), you need a "tee" and appropriate sized threaded adapters for the tube. I use 1 1/4 inch Inner Diameter clear tubing, since this matches the most common PVC plumbing components. d) Hold the tee so that it looks like a letter "T". You want one opening to point straight down. e) Cut slots into the top of the two horizontal flanges with a handsaw or a dremel tool. You want a straight and thin cut, ideal would be 1/16th inch thick and no winder than the pipe's diameter. (Cut no further than 1/2 way through the pipe.) f) Fabricate a "pipe to jar lid adapter" by cutting a hole into the jar lid, and sliding in and gluing a sink flange. Glue this assembly to the downward tee flange with PVC glue. When done, cut a slot in the front side of the flange, similar to (e). g) Fabricate a set of three "slide-in doors" from flashing, plastic, cardboard, whatever is lying around. They should block the opening in the tee completely. Operation is simple. The downward door is normally closed, and the "in" and "out" doors are normally open. (Yes, the bees may take a few days to learn to quickly navigate through this unusual obstruction...) Wait for a bee or two to enter the trap, and slide the in and out doors into their "closed" positions. Screw a jar with a bit of honey onto the downward projecting tee flange, and open the downward door. Wait a bit, and the bees enter the jar. Unscrew the jar, quickly screw on another jar top, and voila - bees in a jar. If more than one day's bees are needed, one can simply bait the jar, close the outermost door, open the downward door, and leave the jar in place until one has a good number of bees. One can even rig up a gerbil feeder nozzle to a jar lid as a feeder for bees in a jar that need to be kept alive for longer periods, like trips. When feed runs out, refill the feeder. Be sure the patient knows the number of sugar packets and amount of water required to mix up a new batch of thin syrup. One can do this with nothing more than water from the hot water tap, and sugar packets pocketed at a restaurant. As far as keeping the colony alive, there are lots of good books on the subject, and a typical MS patient who uses bee stings is very motivated to learn. What about winter? In winter, an indoor observation hive can be kept warm enough to keep traffic going between the feeder and the hive. Yes, feeding is a constant issue in winter, but one must also feed one's fish. Here's a diagram, in genuine ascii art, since Bee-L barfs on attachments (if it looks screwy, cut and paste it into a work processor using a courier font): Threaded Tee Threaded Adapter Adapter Cut Cut Slot Slot +------+ +--v----------------------v--+ +-------+ ||| | | v v | | ||| ||| | | v v | | ||| ||| | | v v | | ||| ||| | | v v | | ||| ||| | | | | ||| ||| | | | | ||| ||| | | | | ||| ||| | | | | ||| +------+ +----+ +----+ +-------+ | | | <<<<<<<<>>>>>>>> | Cut Slot | | +------------------+ Downward Tee Flange +---------------------------+ | | Jar Lid + + +----------------+ | | Sink Flange ======================