Well, I freshened all my taps this morning, some had sap running and some didn't....there wasn't a noticeable difference in the wood or type of holes between sap producers and non sap producers other than the lack of sap, colour, wood condition, etc were all the same. I did notice that the older trees were inconsistent in producing sap (some trees has one or two taps producing and one or two that didn't while others were completely dry); all the younger trees were producing something. However, the trees that produced last year are substantially down in volume as well so the 'new' old trees I tapped may not be the culprit.
With that being said, if the non runners stay dry my 103 taps becomes closer to 50 or so....that would be unfortunate.
Thanks for the tip Dscanuck and fingers crossed that was the issue...
2014 - 6 buckets, 4 coffee cans and a propane burner - almost 40L of sap and 1.6L of syrup
2015 - 103 taps on gravity. Homemade oil tank arch and a Smoky Lake 2' X 5' hybrid. - 2.66 gallons of syrup
2016 - 101 taps, 550 gallons of sap, ~10 gallons of syrup all dark.
2017 - 138 taps, 225 gallons of sap, 5.55 gallons of dark syrup, still procrastinating on the vac.
2018 - ~150 taps, I lost track of the sap it was incredible!, over 20 gal of syrup, all dark.