Best way to transfer sap?

[Birdland Sugarbush]

I tap 30-35 trees, most located pretty close to our road. I'm looking for a better way to transfer sap.

Right now I take two collection buckets (around 5 gallons each), empty the bucket on each tap into the collection bucket and carry them to the truck. I empty them into a few plastic totes. Then back over the snow bank to get more sap.

If I don't overfill the totes, I can pick them up and empty them into a few juice barrels I have in the sap house. Sometimes I end up dipping a bucket into the tote and then carrying it to the juice barrel.

I have to make a few trips with the truck. I'm wondering how everyone else does this? I could get a tank for the truck, but that seems a bit like overkill at the moment.

I may go to tubing next year, and a collection tank with a pump would make much more sense.

Chris

[Yellzee]

thoughts on this. For years i ran tubing into a 55 gallon drum on it's side. I cut a square out of the top side of the drum and rigged up a boat bilge pump i could stick down into the drum. I pulled another drum on a sled on my 4 wheeler up to the line drum and hooked the bilge pump up to a 12 volt battery on my bike rack. I then just used the bilge pump to pump from one drum to the other. Cheap set up, Old battery, bilge pump and a couple drums.
At the shack i use a pony pump to pump out of the drum on the sled up into my feed drum.

Just make sure you wash these out at end of season

[CampHamp]

Last year, with 44 taps on tube, I setup a hoist (an old pulley system) to lift my 60g pickle barrel off the ground and then siphoned into another barrel on my UTV. I couldn't find an inexpensive food-grade pump. This year I splurged on a 12V Shurflo pump.

[Michael Greer]

I carry the five gallon pails to the truck too, but I have 28 pails, with snap-on lids, and I keep gathering until I run out of trees, or run out of pails. Five gallon pails with lids are great for transport down the road.
The old timers will tell you that the best means of transport is gravity. "It's not just a good idea; It's the law." Back in the day, everything was arranged to flow naturally from one container or location to the next. Electricity wasn't an option, and gravity flow always works. Only the oxen worked against gravity, and even then, the sugarhouse was usually situated at the bottom of the hill.