The essence of sustainability is the degree to which one is reliant upon external material inputs - And the accessibility of those inputs in terms of their inherent technological sophistication, their geographic accessibility, and their financial cost. 

It is a spectrum.

The more one's beekeeping depends upon inputs of money, manufactured chemicals, purchased replacement bees, the less sustainable it is.  

The more one can make do with readily available resources, the more sustainable it is.  

It is a question of system-resilience vs. system-optimization.

Replacement-via-swarm-catching falls in a grey area, but still strikes me as reliance upon an external input, and not necessarily an indication of the sustainability of one's beekeeping.

The ultimate litmus test is if I'd be able to continue, if input "X" should become unavailable.   

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