They do fine in the shade. I've got a Black Barlow that's loving its spot by a northeast-facing wall. Any exposure to more than a brief period of MORNING sun can bake them fast, later in the day the sun is far too intense unless it's heavily filtered... where i am.

A few little slugs, from time to time, are the only thing I could advise you to watch for. Avoiding monocultures of Aquilegia and encouraging toads to reside in the garden seem to keep those from being a problem.

I grow all kinds of Columbines. I grow most of them in dappled shade but I also have some that gets lots of sun.

The only pest I've noticed is leaf miners.

Some other flowers that I grow in part shade are: asiatic lillies, hellebores, campanula, calla lillies, bloodroot, mertensia, asarum, huechera, comfrey, tree peonies, phlox divaricata, oxalis.

I planted some columbine seeds a few years ago, and suddenly this spring one grew! A beautiful pink and yellow flower. I'm harvesting the seeds to grow more, plus I just ordered more from a catalogue.

I have mine in full shade. Do they come back each year? Or do I have to re-seed every year?

Columbines are short lived perennials (3 years?), but they re-seed so prolifically that you need never be without them as long as you let the seedheads form. I will take a stalk of dried seedheads with seeds still inside and shake them over empty places. That's all I do. No special prep at all. There are usually so many seeds in the dried seedheads that some of them will take. I have to water my beds/borders on a continual basis, so that supplies the other ingredient. The blue I grow is a short one called Alpina, I also grow the yellow Texas native Columbine (can't remember its latin name right now) and another yellow called Yellow Queen (takes quite a bit of sun here). Since Columbines are so promiscuous I have all sorts of heights and color combinations now; tall blue with yellow, short pink,tall yellow, short yellow, tall blue with white, short blue - well you get the picture. When the foliage gets ratty (spider mites, leaf miners etc.), cut it down and new foliage will emerge. I can do this about twice in my long summer. I try and give them a boost of nitrogen after I cut mine down, something like Miracle gro for roses has a nice first number (nitrogen).