what's with this weather

[bees1st]

I'm not much to get freaked out,BUT this hot weather in March has me scared. I'm an individual who makes a large protion of my income relying on the weather.Is this the start of a rapid shift in weather patterns? I was thinking of purchasing a new evaporator.Boy I'm really thinking twice about it now!

[driske]

Same here; Boy I am really thinking about it now!
Some how( And I really hope I am wrong about this) I have a premonition that the weather as we know it has skipped a cog, and changed from what we traditionally accepted as normal.
I would like to buy a nice shiny 4x15 Hurricane to finish out my career as a Sugar Maker. In light of the past 3 months, and especially the last 10 days I have to reconsider our entire maple production model for North Central WI. Maybe we should be tapping our trees in mid- November (1/4" taps) and taking the runs these mid winter warm spells offer. Then retap,(5/16ths) in the traditional time frame and hope for some freeze thaw cycles to occur.
I'm no weather man. The forecast here coming out of February showed beautiful Maple weather. Then the Sun spots hit, and the temperatures went right through the roof. Lots of talk about the aurora and electromagneric interference, but no mention of how this would impact regional weather. Just layman's speculation, but there's got to be a connection. This is so unprecedented.

[PerryW]

I hear where you coming from. Looks like this will be my worst year in 24 years with 1/3 crop. But, for a lot of people, last year was a great year! So it would be hard to see a long term trend since we had such a good year last year. I think the moral of the story is you need to be able to financially survive a bad year.

I do wonder about the other effects of the record heat wave? Hopefully the ticks and the black flies will come out and a hard frost and big snow will kill 'em all. But there could be other problems with the inevitable return of cold weather. Early fruit blossems killed by frost? A massive die-off of all the peepers that start peeping only to be frozen solid on April 1?

[PerryW]

I wouldn't worry too much about purchasing a new evaporator. You gotta be in it for the long haul in Sugaring.

For most Sugarmakers, last year was a banner year, so I see no immediate long-term trend.

I do worry about other effects of this record heat. Will it destroy the fruit blossoms wit the inevitable return of seasonable temps? Hopefully, it will kill all the ticks & black flies.

edit: oops. the dreaded error message came up so I retyped the post.....

[driske]

Agreed Perry,
The effects of this warm spell go far beyond the world of Sugar making. Our local ginseng growers are fearful of a frost killing their prematurely emerging seedlings and growth crowns on the 2's,3's and 4's.

[bees1st]

in the spring I get a double bonus from the maples, once when they run, and then for the bees it is their 1st nectar source when they bloom, if they start to bloom and get hit by a freeze,that means no nectar for spring build-up. 2010 was simular
early spring,poor maple crop as well, and it pushed the blueberry bloom ahead two weeks,earlist I've ever seen it and I've been pollinating for thirty years. any way the bloom was ahead cold weather came back the blossoms got hit with a frost end of story. This year is setting up the same way, but according to what the bees are telling me we're a solid 4 weeks ahead of the norm. like I said I'm freaking out. This weather pattern we're in right now ,a Bermuda High, is a setup we usally don't see till late June.
As you can see by my moniker,I am in it for the long haul. And I'd plan to do it till I have to hire a kid to stoke the evaportor for me. I'm concerned.

[driske]

Sounds like we share similar interests. I kept bees for 4 years back in the 80's. Things just didn't workout as I was working on the road crews at that time. When I should have been extracting, the work went to 6 long days per week and the bees got neglected. Something had to go. There's still a couple hundred suppers stowed in the shed.... maybe some day?.
My brother and I started sugaring in 1981. Started small, but grew to 23,000 taps at our peak. He passed away 5 years ago, and I've since scaled back to 12,000 taps.
We've had some short crops, but nothing like this. No end in sight for the warmth. I'll give the lawn 2 more days and it will need mowing. The big twin stem hard maple in front of of our deck sported it's first leaves yesterday.

[bees1st]

I find that alot of sugarmakers also keep bees.Something about sweet stickey stuff. There is a little bit of conflict in the latter part of the syrup season on those beautiful days with big runs, thats when you should be out checking your bees to see how they're coming through the winter. I choose to neglect the sap for a day or so ,I always have to remind myself, BEES1ST .That's my mantra, hence the name. Red maples burst into bloom here today.