People in the area who love honey know where to hone in to buy it from his home on Whittingham Lane, and if they want to know how it gets from bee to jar, he might just agree to talk to them - or even groups - and tell them.
It was about five years ago that he set up his first hive in his spacious garden, having been given a queen and nucleus for a small hive with four or five frames by fellow enthusiast, Kate Hodkinson from Longridge.
But a keen interest in these busy creatures was first aroused many years earlier when he was a student, training to become a rural science teacher in Worcester.
In the woodworking section, he made an observation hive with an egg incubator, which then went with him to his various teaching posts.
"That was one of the best things I have ever done, because children could watch and ask questions about the way bees live and work," said Joe.
With his own family background of farming and market gardening going back two generations in Yorkshire, country pursuits have always been in his blood.
After his training period, he took an agricultural development research post in Aberdeen before moving to Lancashire in 1964 to teach animal husbandry at Myerscough College.
When he retired as head of agriculture his colleagues, knowing his interest in bees, gave him a hive and all the gear to cope with what was to become an absorbing hobby.
"I sat and looked at it for a bit," Joe admits - "but then I got really stuck in, and in the last four years or so I have had honey to sell, give away and even exhibit at shows."
Labelled as Lancashire Honey, some is distinctively white and created from the bright yellow rape seed flower, some is more traditionally honey-coloured from mixed sources such as field bean flowers, garden and wild flowers, hawthorn and heather.
"In the spring it's amazing to watch the bees sourcing nectar on a direct route down the garden from the hive, back and forth just like aeroplanes or M6 traffic!" said Joe. "Otherwise they find nectar all over the place, some of the best being in local gardens nearby, or even in towns such as a friend's who keeps bees in Highgate Avenue in Preston."
Numbers of bees in the Birkby hives in summer's peak period total 50/60,000 in each, with the queen laying 1500/2000 eggs a day in her own peak period of May and June.
Her subjects include the larger drones, whose only job is to fertilise her. The whole cycle starts in February when she starts laying in the brood frames, building up numbers as the season progresses to reach the May/June peak.
It takes three weeks for the eggs to hatch, and the worker bees then move on to 'super' frames formed of wax where they place the nectar to make honey.
Its water content reduces as it matures, and when this point is reached, the bees cap the honeycomb over with wax. This seal is left until removed by the beekeper in order to take off the honey by placing frames in a big centrifugal drum which whizzes the honey into a settling tank.
The wax is then left to rise to the top before the honey is filtered several times and finally tapped into jars. Joe then melts the wax in a sun-heated container in the garden to make into candles, beeswax and propolis, an efficient glue.
It is known that bees have been doing their work for 150 million years and must have survived many and varie d hazards and diseases in such a massive amount of time.
Beekepers such as Joe must always guard against such attacks as the parasitic infection known as spectre varroa, whose mites can trigger deformity and death in a hive. This is treated with pyrethroid chemical strips, although a new antidote is being researched as mites are becoming resistant to the this chemical.
Recent 'Bee Watches' on the radio and television have alerted the public to the increasing decline of a favourite insect, and the mysterious disappearance of bees around the world in the last year or two is an alarming indication that new levels of poisoning on a global scale have been reached.
Colony Collapse Disorder is the name given to this new bee 'toxicopathy' - defined as 'any disease caused by poison.'
Some scientists say the answer to this mystery is in the pollen of genetically modified crops that are designed to be toxic to insects. Let us hope Einstein was wrong in his prediction, "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."
Help with such anxieties and problems is always available at the Lancashire and North West Beekeepers Association, of which Joe is a member of the Preston branch. Founded in 1882, it is a registered charity, is affiliated to the British Beekeepers Association and is one of the oldest beekeeping associations in England.
Preston's secretary is Dorothy Todd of Leyland, and she will help with any enquiries on membership, meetings and events by phone on 01772 601264.
But right now, Joe continues to nurture his hobby, despite the current unfriendly bee-weather, by encouraging his son Stephen - who's just moved next door - and four year old grandson Byron into the techniques and mysteries of keeping the bee world going - perhaps for another 150 million years.