Do I need to wash the buckets?

[JYb.shopteacher]

My buckets have been on the trees this past week with small amounts of sap getting dumped, however, do I need to pull the buckets and wash them to make sure that the next run of sap does not spoil from old sap? My thoughts were to dump and rinse with clean water. Should I do more? I have 28 taps with 24 buckets. Thanks, Joe

[psparr]

You'd be fine just rinsing. As long as they don't look funky.

[wnybassman]

I am going to try to rinse mine out after work tomorrow, but mainly to get most of the ants out. I have a few out there that have hundreds (HUNDREDS!!!) in them.