Every spring we tap about 2800 sugar maple trees in our 40 acre sugarbush. A maple tree has to be about 40 years old before it can be tapped. We drill a small hole in the tree and insert a spout. Most maple trees will live to be 150 years old.

Freezing nights and warm days make the maple sap flow from the tree. Most of the sap from our trees is gathered through a modern plastic pipeline system, although we still hang some of the old-fashioned buckets on a few of our maples.

A maple tree will yield about 10 gallons of sap in an average season. Boiled down, this will produce about 1 quart of maple syrup.