Tapping in Québec

[Bernard]

Hi, I've tapped all of the 225 maple trees, tapped 140 last spring. Hope we have a good season, we have to much snow in the wood. Bernard Le Bic Québec

[Homestead Maple]

Bernard,

It will be interesting to see when your season ends seeings how your getting such a late start because of all the snow. It's not much different here though. Boiled for the first time here yesterday.

[Bernard]

Hi, it's windy today and cold, +2 for tomorrow and +6 for saturday, hope the first sap run. Much warmer for next week. Here in Québec the season is late, tapped 23/03/07 last year. Hope the weather change! Bernard

[Homestead Maple]

Bernard,
Very windy here today with temps in the 20's. Wind chill was near 0. Tomorrow looks better and thru the weekend. Maybe it will run all night Friday. It's suppose to stay warm. The deep snow is really keeping the trees from good runs. It must be the same for you. Slow and steady makes for lighter syrup though.

[Bernard]

Hi, the sap run saturday, 55 gallon, monday, 85 gallon , yesterday, 45 gallon and today few drop. We collect tomorrow, we must have rain until next monday. I've boiled yesterday and today, I have a Dominion Grimm 2X5 boiler. Bernard in Québec

[Brent]

Bernard
I'm very interested to know how your season progresses.
It's in the news on radio and in newspapers in Toronto that there could be a big problem in Quebec this year. Most areas the trees are still frozen and real warm weather is coming fast and they fear the season will be over almost the same time it starts.

I hope you get a good run.

[tuckermtn]

yes- very curious to see how the bigger producers in Quebec do this year...heard some stuff on the CBC that some of the producers are quite nervous about their season...bulk prices anyone?

[Maplepro]

Better buy all the bulk you can buy now if you need to buy any! we boiled for the first time yesterday 2.5 weeks behind where we normaly are we still have 3' plus of snow and it looks like the weathers only going to get warmer. i was talking to the largest producer in my area and he has been tapped since the first of march he only made about 300 gallons oh ya and he has 30,000 taps so thats not a real good season for him. i would think if the weather stays the way it is it going to be over soon but i will say the sap we boiled yesterday was the highest sugar content sap we have ever gotten.

[cheesegenie]

I watched a program on CBC last year ,about the Quebec maple syrup industry. Seems they have a supply management quota system and have
millions of pounds of syrup in storage. That might help the producers on
a bad year like this. They showed one producer who bypassed the co-operative and sold directly to a New Brunswick buyer.....his whole sugar
camp got burned to the ground.Does anybody have any more info on this?

[Brent]

we watched the east coast news tonight and they say that New Brunswick is off 60% this year.

I'd have to say it was about that bad on our lot as well not nearly the sap flow we normally get and much too
much of it was buddy. The new evap has hoods and I didn't detect the odor until we were trying to bottle it and it
tasted *&^%

[Bernard]

Hi, not the best season of all, about of 1% of the sirop the producer have made, last week. We have snow, since last night, about 3 inches. The forecast for this week, + 7 for thuesday and up for the rest of the week. Sun for tomorrow, hope the sap run, we are readay!!! Bernard in Québec

[ennismaple]

Bernard - I hope your season ends up better than ours in Eastern Ontario. No chance we'll get to 1 Litre per tap now. Maybe we'll get to 80% of that over the next 3 days before the heat wave hits by Thursday.

[Bernard]

Hi, it's the end, boil the last run thursday, the syrup is dark. About 14 gallons for 225 tap this year, made 9 gallons this week. We have 3 feet of snow in the wood, but the warm weather don't play for us. All of the producer, here, have the same harvest of last year. Bernard in Québec

[KenWP]

I have been sitting here watching people post about how many trees they have and such wondering how in the future I could get more trees then I have on my own peice of land when I just happened to be talking to a fellow about some lodge stuff today and he just happend to have a half section of trees that have never been tapped that he would like me to consider in the future. Guess it does after a while come to he who waits.
Am very impatient waiting for my first year of tapping trees. I can only sharpen so many drill bits and such before I need to actually get this project started. Come on March.

[Haynes Forest Products]

KenWP: I just started a thread about SS and canada was it you that was looking to patch a sink bottom? reply in the ss Canada thread. Tom Petty said "the waiting is the hardest part" its not about Maple syrup

[KenWP]

I had to go by some of the local suger camps this weekend and there has been no movement what so ever. There is not a track in the snow around any of them. I have yet to see another customer in Dominion and Grimm and the pile of drops or premade spiles with blue hose and joiners on the other end is the same size as it was 3 weeks ago. Maybe the seasons been canceled and nobody told me about it yet.

[ennismaple]

I'm sure it's the same in Eastern Ontario. Our best days are always the last 2 weeks of March or the first week of April so I'm not worried about a few warm days. I'm acutally glad we got this melt so the snow gets knocked down a lot and there's a good hard base to walk on. Let our brothers down south tire themselves out for a while - we'll be waaaay ahead of them by the end of April! Sugarmaking is a 5 or 6 week marathon, not a sprint!

[Teuchtar]

Well I've been out this last few weeks replacing drop lines and fixing the mains. Bought myself a two handed tool (don't know why they don't call it 3 handed) so drop line replacement goes way more pleasant.
This weekend I am going to start making some holes. I've switched over to small spouts, which makes everything better, including easier drilling. Get twice as far on a battery before having to go back to the house for a recharge.
Hoping temps in our valley go back down where they belong for a while longer. Like Ennis, I would rather nothing moves until march 10. But I'm dying to get going by St Pats. Last year, the only big run was last week or so of March. I'm on the southeast slope of Sutton mountain, so my days are real short.

[KenWP]

Things are looking up around here. I had to go for a drive towards the border and ther guys down there have got roads plowed out now and I seen the one guy had his Gator out in the bush. So if the old frenchmen are moving its getting closer. Believe me these guys here do not get bothered leaveing something till tomorrow or even next week. I have to figure out now just how many trees I want to tap. I went to haveing 30 to haveing over a hundred I can tap now. I wonder how much sap a guy can boil in 24 hours with a sink and a couple pots.

[Bernard]

Hi Ken, a propane burner , like for coocking sweet corn, with a 16x18 flat pan, boil about 2 gallon of sap x hour. The first try,i've made, are with that equipment, not very fast. With a Coleman propane camping stove, a coocking pot, for pre-heat the sap, much better. The problem , when adding cold sap in your boiling one, the boiling process stop, if you pre-heat 1/2 gallon at a time, for 10 minutes, and pour it in the boiling sap, the process never stop. You boil the sap you have collected in the day and finnish with sirop at 219° Bernard

[KenWP]

The newspaper today says the sap might run this weekend. I went to D&G today and there were actually customers in the place today. Good thing as my French sucks. I passed a few sugar bushs that were tapping. Seen the neatest way to double tap a tree with two taps. They tap with a bucket spile and then a little higher and to the side they put a plastic with a peice of tubeing into the bucket also.

[Bernard]

Hi, that the end of the 2009 season. Tap 295 trees this year, produce 30 gallons of syrup. The sap run 8 days in all. Remove buckets and spouts today and clean the equipment tomorrow. Bernard in Quebec