The biggest problem I see with those who would exploit the 
word "sustainable" is that they fail to see any real need to compromise, 
especially with regard to their own cost of living.  As Bob has recognized, 
it's possible to sell honey along the lines Brian advocates for $8+/lb, at 
least within limits.  Similarly, we can eat pork from hogs rooting in the 
woods, eat nuts from geographically dispersed "polycultural" farms, and 
burn homegrown moonshine for our energy needs.  The reason we don't is that 
all these practices are extremely dollar-inefficient.  Just do the math: if 
mankind is going to devote five times as many manhours to producing every 
pound of honey/sweetener (and similarly every pound of pork, nuts, etc., 
etc.), mankind is going to have to consume a whole lot less of many other 
things in order to free up the extra manhours for honey production.  This 
presents a secondary problem of requiring a bunch of people to give up 
their comfortable city jobs and accept getting stung while doing manual 
labor.  

Of course, for the individual beekeeper there are other solutions, most 
notably convincing rich, gullible yuppies to spend five times as much for 
his honey as he would be willing to pay himself.  That doesn't solve any 
problems, but it does shift the cost away from the beekeeper onto rich 
yuppies.  Shifting our problems onto other people is hardly this shining 
beacon of sustainability, though.  In fact, shifting costs onto other 
people (e.g. proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria, pollution, 
inciting foreign wars, etc.) defines the very antithesis of 
sustainability.  Yuppies may make for unsympathetic victims, but even if we 
embrace Robin Hood style stealing from the rich to give to the poor 
farmer/beekeeper, we've avoided the much bigger question of sustainability 
of how to go about feeding and providing for the other 6.99 billion people 
for whom price matters.

I think there is, however, a fairly clear model of sustainability we can 
aspire to insofar as we're able to swim against the stream and make the 
necessary compromises.  I see that model as one of a lot more small farms, 
and one of labor replacing chemical/industrial inputs.  Specifically for 
beekeeping, I think that would mean a lot more sideline/small-scale 
commercial beekeepers keeping more or less permanent yards and deriving 
their beekeeping income primarily from honey sales.  If farms in general 
were comparably dispersed and diversified, the need for migratory 
pollinators would practically disappear.  I think that model is clear; how 
to get there, both individually and collectively, is the challenge.

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