Tapping the trees

We used to tap the trees with a brace and bit, but then Grandpa got tired of the work that entailed, and started bringing a cordless drill to the woods for tree tapping.  We drill a 7/16ths inch diameter hole about 3 inches into the tree.

Then, we tap a spile into the tree to seal the hole we just drilled and channel the sap into the bucket or bag we hang on the spile.

Sometimes someone tries to catch the first drops on his tongue...

While in the woods, we usually drink the sap in place of water.  It tastes like cold fresh spring water with a hint of sweetness.

We hang the sap sack on the spile to catch the sap.  We use these covered bags to keep rain or snow water from running down the tree trunk into the sap we are collecting.

Now we have to wait for the sap to drip out of the tree into the bags.  When the sap is running well, it drips out of the spiles at a rate of 1 to 2 drops per second.  At this rate a single tap can produce 2 or more gallons of sap in 1 day.  And 30 gallons of sap boil down to 1 gallon of syrup.

The 10-acre woods we use is near Cleveland, Minnesota.  My great Grandpa Walter share-cropped on this farm in the 1920's and made maple in this very woods.  We only use the back half of the woods now, because the owner (from the same family that owned the woods in the 20's) makes maple in the front half.  We can make about 150 taps in our part of the woods.  12 inch diameter trees can tolerate 1 tap.  The biggest trees can safely tolerate 4 or even 5 taps.  We tap only hard maples, also called sugar maples.  Sugar maples yield the richest sap, but maple syrup can be made from any maple tree.

Making maple is very weather dependent.  The trees make sugar via photosynthesis in the summer.  In the winter they store that sugar in their roots in preparation for making new leaves the next spring.  The sap runs for a few days or weeks in the spring.  In southern Minnesota it usually happens in the second half of March.  When the days warm up into the 40s and the nights freeze into the 20s, the sap runs, or at least it is supposed to.  (Knowing when the sap will actually run is a mystery and chronic frustration.)  When the nights no longer freeze, or when the trees begin to bud, the season is over.