dry taps

[miner1]

I have about 50 or so taps. About 15 taps on the cdl health spouts on tubing drops to 5 gal pails that have been producing well all season. And the rest on blue bucket spiles, bags spiles, and a few black plastic drops. I tapped 4 weeks ago. First week was a good run, second week was warm and rainy, third week was frozen up, and now we are in perferct weather. Question...Why have I had a problem with the taps drying out? I've had about 4 bucket spiles, 2 bag spiles, and few black plastic spiles all dry up. The cdl health spiles have done just fine. The ones that have dried were never good producers to begin with, I hit good wood and they were wet when I put them in, they just never produced much and dried up early. Should I pull the tap and call it done or should I retap the tree?

[CampHamp]

Some trees that are in the shade (near hemlock/spruce) stay frozen longer - same if your tap is on the dark side of the tree. Big trees seem to take longer to thaw, too. These same taps can outperform the others later in the season. I'd recommend leaving them rather than risk harming the tree.

[PerryW]

Though Reaming the hole is generally not recommended, you could try running the drill bit down the same hole and drill it 1/4" deeper and see if the flow starts again. Reaming the old hole would do less damage than boring another hole.

[miner1]

I retapped 3 of them, they are large trees that can take two taps that I only had one in, so it shouldn't hurt the tree to much. They flowed like crazy so I know it wasn't a frozen tree thing, I think they just dried out from lack of decent sap weather.

[Shawn]

I was worried also about the trees with buckets on them drying out. We tapped out the 19th and 20th of last month and they ran good then we had the rain and freeze up, but I am going to leave them alone and see if mother nature does her thing with them in which I think she will. I did find that some behind my house which I thought were drying out are starting to run a little today.:cool:

[maplehillbros7179]

you dont want to put more holes in the tree than you need to per year so i would leave them in. If the trees are in the shade then its probably still froze up pretty good.

[Sugarmaker]

Miner1,
more questions sorry:)
Have you tapped these trees before?
Were they good producers before?
I have a few trees in our yard that just dont produce much sap.
Regards,
Chris