Tapping in Bug Tussle

[JohnM]

I lack 7 taps of 106 total to be all tapped for 2018. I put 40 in on tubing during last weeks thaw. Updated equipment this year includes a home built RO and a Lunchbox Vacuum for the taps on tubing.

Wishing you a Sweet Season!

[DougM]

Hey John,
how's your season going? We're doing a lot better than the last couple of years. We're hoping we can get a little more sap over the next few days, but I'm not sure how long the holes will stay open on our taps with bags, since we tapped mid-January.

[maple flats]

If those taps were sanitized or new taps you should get 4-6 weeks on bags, on tubing with vacuum you usually will get 3 months with good sanitation practices.

[DougM]

They were sanitized, but this is the end of the 6th week, so we're starting to push the limits. A few of them are starting to get some purple slime on them, so that's a bad sign. Unfortunately we've had quite a bit of warm weather lately, so that's not helping.

If our tubing lines continue to run we might be able make a little more, we'll see. The forecast isn't all that great. We could add 12-15 on tubing & around 30 bags if we feel energetic & the forecast looks good for another week or so

[JohnM]

Hey Doug,

I also put in my taps mid January but I think the we have had a slower warm up than 2017. I have enough syrup to equal about a quart per tap. Better than the last two years. I plan to stay in a while longer.

To your question from last year about tubing slope on my 40 taps, I think it is less than 4% on 5 year old Leader 5/16". How do you have your 3/16" tubing set up and how is working for you?

[DougM]

Sorry John, I thought I had replied, but I guess I got happy fingers & it didn't post.
We have our 3/16" lines on a property just north of Coatesville, on the west side of 75. We're working with an average slope over 7%, with a total drop of about 40'. So far in our second year of using the tubing we're really happy with it. Even with a short drive to get there & pumping ot into our transport tank we really like being able to collect sap from 50+ trees in about 20 minutes.
For next year we're going to look into access to another nearby property that has a bit less slope, but it drops about 30' total, so that should still create decent vacuum.
Our taps with bags are mostly dried up, but the tubing is running well. We pulled some bags from dry holes & moved them to trees we hadn't tapped to stretch things out a little, but it looks like we'll be wrapping up this weekend.

[prairietapper]

3 months!! wow that is a game changer
I know it is not a "game" for many people....but i am sure you know what i mean

[DougM]

Yeah, my wife said something about it being a long season earlier in the week, and it has been, but we really need to replace our syrup pans, so we're making as much as we can to sell.
Now it's looking like good weather at least through the middle of next week, so we'll keep squeezing out as much as we can

[Sugarmaker]

I just had to review the thread on Bug Tussle!:)
Good luck with your season.
Regards,
Chris

[DougM]

John, we did a test run of 1000' of tubing to the woods (& back) last weekend. We plugged in our new Lunchbox, waited a bit and it pumped water back to the barn like a champ. We may have to get another one!
Thanks for the demo last spring

[JohnM]

That is good to hear Doug! I would like to hear what size/type tubing you selected for your test. In my "maple world" the builder's sign and layout stakes when up on lot I used for the Lunchbox in 2018. I will try to use some of the lines to setup Lunchbox on my lot and start making contacts to add 40 taps back on my total for 2019. :-)

[DougM]

John, sorry I missed this, I didn't see a notification.
Anyway, we did our test with 5/16" tubing, and it worked great. We have about 200 trees in that woods, so for this year we'll just use the Lunchbox for 100 & the rest on bags.

We like it so much we've decided get another Lunchbox for our woods just north of Coatesville & do a hybrid 3/16 & 5/16 system there (last year it was 3/16" only, natural vacuum). Our 3/16" tubing still has another year on it, so we didn't want to go all 5/16 there at once. We had some issues with getting access to our tank at that location, so we're going to put the Lunchbox at the tank location (low) & move the tank uphill to the driveway for easy access. We found about 60 new trees there, so the Lunchbox should let us put vacuum on some of those that aren't high enough above it to the low point by gravity, as well as pumping it up to the drive.

Any idea how far uphill the Lunchbox will pull sap? Some of the trees we found are in an area where we'd have to go up about 13' to get over a ridge. I emailed Dean at Northwoods Sugarworks a couple of weeks ago, but haven't heard anything back. I suppose we could calculate it, but that's a lot of thinking work.

Good luck with finding new trees,
Doug

[DougM]

John,
Hope you're having a great season, we've been doing pretty well so far.

We got both our pumps up & running, and they've been working fine, but I we've been wondering about a situation from last week.
We had a leak, and after we fixed it the pump went from cycling quickly to every second or so, as expected. At the time it was also venting air between cycles, but it was catching up on the sap in the lines so I didn't think much of it.
I was out there a few days later and it was running about 4-5 seconds between cycles, and not venting air. Any idea what the difference is? Michael checked our other pump on Sunday, and said it was venting air as well. We don't know enough about them yet to figure out what's going on.

[JohnM]

I remember the booklet for the Lunchbox mentioned dry air. May have been some moisture blocking the exhaust? I think the longer between cycles means you have a good tight tubing setup, a good thing for your air supply. My tubing is about 9 years old and between the old tees and squirrel chews it is a bit leaky. I have new tees but have not put them in because the for sale sign is still on the lot. It has been a pretty good year so far, big runs, nice flavorful syrup.

[maple flats]

Tapping early is a risk you run when not on vacuum tubing. In that case you should wait until the forecast shows a good weather pattern for sap flow. Rarely will early taps run for a full season on taps that are not on vacuum tubing. You then want to get the best sap flow days, not try to get the first days.

[Mitchell tapper.]

I have been running flojet pumps for 4 seasons. I know they don’t perform as well with a lot of air in the lines. Its still better than not running one at all. I have a vacuum gauge at the top of the run to keep a quick eye on it but listening to the pump and watch the sap move in the line works just as well. The first few years the system worked rather well. This year I changed to clear spouts and was plagued with leaks. And only 35 taps. I finally hooked two pumps together as a last resort. For my little operation they work fine as long as you stay on top of the leaks and keep a tight system.

[DougM]

Thanks for the info, we'll take a look at air in the lines when they start running again. We thought about putting gauges in, but the woods are pretty flat, so we ended up with 10 terminations, that's a lot of gauges.
We're using clear check valve spouts, we've had to re-seat a few, but so far they seem to work fine. In the past our only tubing was 3/16 natural vacuum with the standard spouts.
The only leak we found so far appeared to be from a squirrel chew. Other than that both pumps have worked great. It's nice to get clean sap, and the woods have been so wet that not having to collect 87 taps has been a huge benefit. The steering broke on the mule last week, so we had to leave about half of our bags in the woods full on Saturday. They may thaw out sometime next week :)
At our second location where the pump is mainly there to pump the sap from the creek up to the road it's been a huge benefit. I don't think we could have gotten to the tank we had there before due to wet ground.

[Andrew Franklin]

Really disappointed today. I drove down to my property expecting a huge haul and there was only about 20 gallons in my tanks, and a bunch of crap in it, so I dumped it all. Two of my lines were just starting to run, but it will be so warm tomorrow it will spoil before I get back down, so I left the lines out. Then, I decided to go repair leaks on the lines not running, and found I've lost my fitting pliers. Not my finest day. Hopefully we'll have one more run after it cools down Friday, but I'm seeing some buds on the smaller trees that get a lot of sun.

[DougM]

Sorry to hear that Andrew, we've had a good couple of days, except we're having a lot of trouble getting to our bags due to the woods turning into a swamp. We're seriously considering going to all tubing next year.
Hopefully the weather early next week will help you out.

[DougM]

We're done for the year, pulled most of our tubing on Wednesday.
Considering we got 63 gallons from around 230 taps last year, 114 gallons from 250 taps this year makes it look like the investment in pumps & tubing was worth it. Hopefully next year I'll need to edit my signature to eliminate most of the bags & add in another pump.

[JohnM]

I am also done in Bug Tussle except for washing and putting away. My yield was similar to yours Doug about 50 gallons on 110 taps. It was a fast and furious season. I have gotten more experience at operating and cleaning the RO which made a huge difference and saved a bunch of firewood.