A traditional Chinese medicine doctor has cured more than 1,000 patients suffering from rheumatism, arthritis, and other diseases over the past three years by using bee hives.

The therapy uses Chinese honey bees to sting human acupuncture points and lets the bee poison fight with the poison inside the patient’s body until the latter is mitigated or eliminated. The whole curing process takes only five to 10 minutes.

She Ruitao is the only doctor doing this at Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in southern China. The hospital didn’t introduce the therapy until three years ago.

At first, it was hard thing for She to find bees. He had thought about buying bees from bee keepers, but gave up on the idea due to long transportation distances.

Now he raises a hive of bees on a hill next to a botanical garden. The honey bees can survive between four and six weeks in summer and two and three months in winter. Leaving the hive, they live shorter.

She has to calculate how many bees can suffice for a day’s treatment before going work. And each day, he will catch at least 100 bees to take to the hospital.

After three years of practice, he can now catch more than 100 bees in about 20 minutes. Soon he will own a piece of land to raise more bees at the hospital courtyard, which will make his work more convenient.

His patients said the bee therapy makes them feel less pain and they gradually reduce the use of medications after receiving the therapy.

However, the bees can’t survive long after stinging a patient. When they die, She will bury them under a tree at the hospital.

The doctor said he will publicize the bee therapy and make it a widely used method to cure autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.