My dad is planning to take it up when he retires (his father was also a beekeeper, until he developed an allergy to their stings). He and I went on a beekeeping course a couple of months ago to get an idea of the basics.

Although they are low-maintenance livestock they do require monitoring and so while it's not a lot of effort you do need to be fairly disciplined and ensure that if you're going away for more than a couple of weeks, you have someone who knows what they're doing to drop in and inspect the hives.

You also need to be able to identify the warning signs both of disease (particularly foulbrood, which must be dealt with quickly and decisively, especially if you have multiple colonies), a non-laying queen and/or an incipient worker revolution. Otherwise you risk the collapse of the colony, or swarming. I read recently that Germany has had a big problem with swarms from novice beekepers, and that it can take five years or so to know what you're doing.