A couple years ago a coworker started telling me he wanted to keep bees. I wouldn't have thought much of it, but he was actively moving forward with having bees. He was going to keep the out at his family's land in Nacogdoches, which is about a 3 hour drive from Dallas where we both live. I told him I was much closer, only 30-40 minutes away, and had the space, so why not keep them here?
So that spring he set up three hives and started keeping bees in the pasture behind my house. We, and I say we because I started doing hive maintenance for him since he could only get over here every other week or so, did pretty well. The hives flourished, produced lots of honey, and seemed to be doing well. It kept me in honey (yum!) and beeswax (which I used for casting and lubing), and was really low effort.
The cold snap we had in February was worse than anyone expected, and killed all the hives. So we started again this spring, with all new packages of bees, and are basically starting over.
The bees are doing great this year do far, already producing honey and brood, and I look forward to many more productive seasons.