Roadside Tapping

[Dennis H.]

I have been reading about roadside tapping and I have a few questions for the ones who do roadside tapping.

Do you run into any trouble tapping along the road, Like people taking the buckets, putting stuff into the buckets, snowplows(snow, rocksalt, cinders)

Ok maybe that was just one question, anyway, I work nights and now that sugarin is on my mind while driving home I see a lot of sugar maples along the road and think wouldn't it be great to tap those!

But some of them are not near any house and I think that since maple sugarin isn't really known around here, not that I know of anyway, that some wise guy may come along and decide that they have a better use for the bucket that is hanging on the tree.

The next question, I knew there was more than one. Do you offer anything and how much, to the owners of the trees even if there is only 4 or 5 trees?

I am finding that right here around my house there is not many maples in the woods,mostly oaks, the maples are more located around farm houses and roadside.

Thanks,
Dennis

[PATheron]

Dennis- Any time ive tapped them they run like crazy and I just put covers over them and I dont remember ever getting stuff in them like salt cinders etc. It says in the book you could get off flavor from road salt but ive never heard of any one saying it happened. If the owners will let you tap them seems like theyd be great runners,way better than the woods trees. Maybe you could give them a little syrup even if theres not many. I think sugarmaker and some of the guys do tons of those kind of trees. Theron

[maplekid]

i can tell you a little story on people messin with buckets along the road.my dad has a friend that taps 700-800 trees and uses all buckets well one day we go out and found 170 buckets with holes in the bottom and the first thing that i saw was a pocket knife laying on the ground. my first thought was it was the kids down the street and sure enough we go up and ask them if any of them saw any body in the woods and they said they didnt see knowone and that they didnt lose a pocket knife. i wouldnt want to get caught by an angry sugarmaker poking holes in his buckets. i would tap them roadside because they have full crowns and that is what creates sugar in the sap because there is more photosynthesis happening

[3% Solution]

Hi Dennis,
That's all I tap is roadside and lawn trees, man don't those babies run and SWEET, too.
I have one tree on a lawn that will run 12 gallons (4 taps) on a good run.
Oh yeah, the best thing is not much trudging through the snow!!!!
The thing about roadside or lawn trees is they have a large canopy and they have to feed all that up there.
If you worry about snowplows and such, just tap on the backside so the tree will protect your bucket (s).
I usually get sand in the buckets, which is put there by the wind.
So far, (I'm knocking on wood, actually, pounding the hell out of this desk), we have no problem with the scum of the earth stealing our stuff.
I do give some syrup out to the owners, it depends how much I gather from their trees, but most get at least a quart. I have one guy that doesn't want any.
It's nice having lawn trees, the owners call you to tell you the buckets are running over.
Hope this helps.

Dave

[royalmaple]

I was talking to an old timer one day and he told me a story about an old frenchman locally that was very short.

He had to put his buckets very low compared to most people you see. And the kids would walk up to the buckets and use them for urinals.

And he said that he'd take the sap/combo home and throw it in the evaporator. People would ask him what he was doing and he replied, boiling.


It is where the term, boil the Pi$$ out of it came from.

[maplehound]

Ok. Road side trees do run big, but before you tap them look up and see if there are any wires running through them. If there is you might not get much from them. At least I can't. The reason is that the power company use to (and often still does) put a growth inhibitor in the tree. I have three trees in my neighbors yard right out near the road and they won't run more than a few drops a day. While the trees in his yard just a short distance away run buckets a day.

[TapME]

We are going to do about 50 road side trees( at least 30 to 50 feet from the road) this year. We look forward to having a problem of too much sap from the taps, with buckets that runneth over.

[Dennis H.]

There is a house about 1 mile down the road that has 7 sugars around their house maybe I will have to stop and talk to them about tapping them.

Would it be better to use traditional metal sap buckets and taps on those trees around homes? I am thinking that they might be a little more likely to allow tapping with them than with a 5gal plastic icing bucket and a lenght of plastic tubing?

A lot of the trees that I see along the road here are right off the road, maybe 10-15'.

About the power company, I don't think sprays are a problem, its the tree hackers!! Boy do they hack up trees.
Around here they will hack trees up that are around or near homes, the ones they can get to with cherrypicker truck. The stuff that they spray is the stuff that they can't reach with the truck or the land owner won't allow to get to with a truck.

The thought of seeing a bunch of boys using the buckets as urinals, man, that is a bad picture!

[brookledge]

If you ever want to get certified organic then you probably don't want to tap them unless you are certain that no roadside sprays or commercial fertilizers have been used. Or in the case of someones lawn. if it has been treated with fertilizers that are not organic then your sap won't be
but otherwise I'd tap them if it is convient for you.
Keith

[Fred Henderson]

This may be a little too techencial but the University of Vermont has found thur their testing that the road salt does does carry over into the sap and the syrup.If all you ate was syrup you may notice some health effects. You will not taste the salt but my understanding is that its there in trace amounts. Plastic buckets on the ground have a tendency to blow away unless you put something heavy on the lid.

[super sappy]

When I was young ( Just legal age to drink) I rember leaving a bar over in Cambridge one nite. Someone had tapped some trees between the road and the sidewalk . These trees were in a direct walking rout between the bar and the only over-nite diner in town. I actually saw someone-you know. Anyway I know where some nice roadside trees are but I do not tap them because there is alwayse a stack of beer cans and booz bottles at a pull off nearby.No houses around etc. -I think if you are near someones house you should be ok-

[Fred Henderson]

When I was young ( Just legal age to drink) I rember leaving a bar over in Cambridge one nite. Someone had tapped some trees between the road and the sidewalk . These trees were in a direct walking rout between the bar and the only over-nite diner in town. I actually saw someone-you know. Anyway I know where some nice roadside trees are but I do not tap them because there is alwayse a stack of beer cans and booz bottles at a pull off nearby.No houses around etc. -I think if you are near someones house you should be ok-

If you are worried about something like this then you should never drink water again. Exspecially town water that comes from a river because fish pee and crap in it, and so do people. In the country on a well no telling what that water run over to get into that well.

[Revi]

Those roadside trees really suffer when they salt the roads. I like trees that are a bit off the road, but of course that means more lugging. Ones that are above the road are in better shape than those below. Look around, and you'll see how the roadside maples suffer from crown die back and disease. I think it's from the salt.

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

DENNIS

I tap 18 trees on roadside total of 51 taps, then 200 hundred in my woods and get just about half my sap from the roadside taps

RICH

[firetech]

I too tap road trees as there's not a maple in sight at home. Last year we 66 tappes all on road trees. The road I use is a little busy so we much watch out for traffic but we get by. We made 19 gals from those trees last year. I will move to 100 tappes for this year until I get a better way to boil. This past Sept the Mich Syrup producers had the fall tour and 2 of the sugarhouses only collect from road trees each doing +/- 700 tappes and up to 35 mile routes. So the way I see it you don't need to own the trees just borrrow them. One tree that we tapped this past spring had 2 five gal and 1 three gal bucket on her she would give 10-12 gal of sap/day in the big run, and it was always across the road from the truck. There are probably 300 tappes easy on this 2mile stretch of road. Someday I willl get them all.

[Sugarmaker]

My two cents:
We tapped road side trees since 1966. Once in a while we have had several buckets thrown in the weeds. But luckily none ever stolen. Last year we did have a bullet hole through the bottom of one.
Sugars seem to run much better than soft maples. Yes a lot of the old maples are suffering along the roads. Main highways seem to be the worst. probably more salt? Also remember some of these trees may have been around at the time of the civil war! With 400 holes poked in you over 150 years and not much attention we might look a little peeked too!

I am currently planning to go to mostly tubing for 2008. We had so much snow plowed on the sides of the road last year we would have had a very hard time gathering, so the tubing worked well.

Good luck with those roadside trees. I think you'll like the way they run.

If I had a sloped sugar bush I would probably use that as a first choice.

We rent the trees at the rate of a gallon of syrup for every 100 taps.

Also our sugar content never dropped below 2% last year.

Regards,
Chris

[sapman]

Around here, the state roads are ONLY salted, they don't even use sand. But I asked my neighbor what the town uses, as he has run the wing before, plowing. He said they only use enough salt to keep the sand loose, so that put my mind pretty well at ease, as all my roadside trees are on town-plowed roads. I wonder how much exhaust may contribute to the ill health of these trees, also. We know they take in carbon dioxide, but there's more than just that in exhaust, I'm sure.

My pastor bought and restored a home where I used to tap. Now he taps them, collects the sap, and pays me to turn it into syrup. He knows of an old photo, showing civil war soldiers reclining in the shade of those trees.

I usually pay in syrup depending on how the year has been. Last year was pretty good for us, so I try to pay about a gallon per 30-50 taps, depending on the average amount I think a given grouup of trees run. So most of my owners get a quart or 1/2 gallon. Then some don't care much, and may not take any.

Tim

[royalmaple]

I know around here they use the liquid calcium pretty hard. I'm not sure if that's better or worse. But there has been a trend more and more to at least pre-treat with liquid calcium and wind the salt to the roads too.

[3% Solution]

Good morning all,
One thing I didn't mention was the fact that all my trees are located on dirt roads, which means only sand is used.
Now, mud is a problem, but what is sugaring season without mud!!
Chris you brought up a real neat point, most of the large trees were around during the Civil War, now just think about that!! WOW that is neat!!
That really puts things in perspective.

Dave

[VA maple guy]

Dennis, two years I had four plastic one gallon jugs the lines and taps
stolen off some road side Norways I tap. I have now painted all my plastic
jugs and six gallon buckets I use on road side trees with brown paint to help hide them.
Gerry

[ibby458]

I've tapped upwards of 400 road trees/ year. I did have 10 buckets stolen once, but stenciling my name on the buckets stopped that cold. (THe sherrif knows who the likely hoodlums are, and they don't like getting caught with marked goods.)

I've never had any problems with salt or vandalism. Thick brush around the base and high, slushy snowbanks are more of a problem.

[Dennis H.]

Thanks for the replys.

It is good to hear for the most part that you all haven't ran into much trouble tapping road maples.


I think I will have to stop by some neighbors homes to ask if I could tap a few of there trees.

[firetech]

How do you guys collect those roadside trees? I'm tring to avoud buckets do to the labor required. If you use totes or barrels how do you get the sap out. I figure that I need to move the sap about 20ft with a 6 foot lift. I'm afraid if there are valves on the barrels that someone may go and open them before I can get back to them. My thought is to lay a 55 gal drum on its side with a slight lift on the bung end and inserting a wand in the upper plug and suck out the sap. an more ideas and what type of pump would I need? I sthis correct thinking?

[brookledge]

One type ofpump that is great when collecting is a rotary gear pump like the kind used on filter presses only bigger. When I used to have buckets and a lot of small collection barrels there is no better type of pump. Centrifical pumps that say they are self priming are slow to get a prime and then if you have any head pressure in the discharge hose it's even slower. Once you get it primed they pump good but it is frustrating to go from barrel to barrel with a centrifical.
On the otherside though with road side trees and buckets all you need is a 3/4" or 1" rotary gear pump and you can use a 50 foot length of suction and with one person driving and one person going from bucket to bucket it is very fast and you do not need to take the bucket off the tree nor do you need to worry about slipping and spilling gathering pails.
Keith

[ibby458]

When we were gathering roadsides, I kept thinking a small generator powering one of those shop-vacs with a pump inside would be just the ticket for sucking sap out of buckets and barrells

[Father & Son]

Try something like Sugarmaker uses for gathering roadside totes. A 12 volt bilge pump on a 25 ft hose with a remote switch. He has pictures on his website I think.
I'm going to try to rig one up for this year.

Jim

[3% Solution]

Hey Firetech,
As far as gathering roadsides we use 5 gallon pails for the buckets and as far as the pipeline we back up to the tanks as close as we can and drain them in the 5 gallon buckets.
I think the farthest we have to walk is about 70' off the road. This isn't bad as we use snowshoes to pack this down good and then we can walk on top until it thaws, then back to the snowshoes.
We gather by bucket for three reasons; 1). It's the old way of doing things (got to stick with some of the nastalgia) 2). It's my spring weightloss program 3). Gets my legs into shape for the spring fire season.
These are just our reasons!!

Dave