Bucket pump???

I have about 25 "roadside" trees surrounding a church near me and they produce wonderful quantities of good sap. To keep the aesthetics I use buckets on these trees. Collecting is problematic because it's only me and I have to pull my truck up to a central point and collect as many buckets as I can then move on to another central point. All the while I'm going back and forth with full buckets, sometimes spilling precious sap. I've thought about using a yoke with 5 gallon buckets, but the trees have 2 buckets on each of them and most days they are full. That's 4 gallons x 4 buckets = 16 gallons for two trees and that's more than two 5 gallon containers could hold.

I guess I could use the 5 gallon buckets for each tree, but I'm wondering if there is an easier way. Is there such thing as a self priming pump (that's relatively quiet) that I could start and walk with a hose from tree to tree and just stick it in have it be pumped out? I could get some kind of retractable hose and that way I'm walking out and coming back once which would make collecting a LOT easier.

Any ideas or am I doing it the best way?

Thanks - Dave

How about a 12 volt (off the truck battery) boat bilge pump on the end of your hose. They only run $15 or so- but you would need pretty long battery leads. If you can park the vehicle lower than the level of the taps, I've got a great siphon hose that uses a marble to engage the siphon - no sucking:)

A bucket dumping station on the back of your truck helps. A neighbor of mine has one. Its just 2, 5 gallons pail the bottom one with a bilge pump, and a top one with hole in it as a strainer/slosh reducer. The pump runs up into his gathering tank. Its a lot easier than jumping up on my tire and slinging the bucket overhead.
The retractable hose idea isn't bad, but I would guess it's cost prohibitive.

We have used a bilge pump and it worked great.wired it to plug into my trailor light plug in.

What you need is a garbage truck arm. The ones that dump those green trash barrels with the wheels. just drive up and hydrological will do the rest. Or a dump station sounds good too.

How far will a bilge pump push sap?

I can't say as I understand the problem for 25 buckets unless you have to carry them a long way. What you describe I do for 70 buckets every day. I must be missing something if you want to pump sap.

You need a diaphram type pump that can run dry and will self prime and that will work. OR get a small tank on the truck and run a small vacuum set up. small 110volt gast pump with a converter off the truck battery. Find a dairy supply and get a lead on used step saver hose its bullet proof and will take the vacuum. Then put a ball valve and a 20" copper pipe and between trees shut the vacuum down and when you get to a bucket insert and Kattie bar the doors. Just like your local septic service but a smaller set up.

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Originally Posted by BryanEx

I can't say as I understand the problem for 25 buckets unless you have to carry them a long way. What you describe I do for 70 buckets every day. I must be missing something if you want to pump sap.

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Yeah try doing that with 600.

We serviced about 400+ buckets prior to moving over to tubing.
Yes I like the look of the buckets But I like the labor savings of the gravity tubing [12 to 20 taps] into 35 gallon containers. And yes we are using quiet 12 volt bilge pumps.
Chris

How about dumping 2500. a dump station works well.

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Originally Posted by Dave Y

How about dumping 2500. a dump station works well.

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No thanks 600 is too many now. You really got to love buckets to be dumping 2500 of them.

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Originally Posted by 3rdgen.maple

Yeah try doing that with 600.

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Of course... but the original post specified 25 trees with 2 buckets each - 50 buckets. A pump setup may be less physical effort but more time and hassle to collect with. I can't see a better way than getting as close as you can and then using two equally filled 5 gallon pails to huff it back to the collection tank.