Quote Originally Posted by Galena View Post
Hi Mike, sounds like it's your reds which are running first and of course they like swampier conditions....some friends of mine tap nothing but reds cause that's all they've got :-) Never tapped silvers, I hear they can be very capricious...either masses of sap or zilch. My bush is now all sugars - I did tap a couple reds but they never did much, so I stopped - and true to form my three little bush maples are taller more than wide. Don't have bush as thick as yours sounds, though, at least it doesn't affect the Surprises. My other trees are yard maples, the biggest tree needs at least two people to reach around her trunk. No tree takes more than 3 spiles. The bush sugars take only 1 apiece.

Expect your reds to peter out a good 2-4 weeks before your other maples. Reds start first and usually have a pretty low sap content. If you have mostly young trees you might want to compare notes with LesPetras, whose bush is mostly young trees and on a slope too.

Bet you're glad to have escaped KemptHaven....ugly little houses sprouting like mushrooms everywhere now :-( Glad the blight hasn't yet spread to my area too much *crossed fingers*
haha - yes - very happy to be out of Kemptville and back in the wilderness where I belong.
Hardly got anything yesterday - only 7Gals/26L and that out of maybe 12 trees - the rest of the 80 still doing nothing. Very weird too. I went out and checked this morning and most of the ones that were running have stopped. Can't believe it with these temps. Starting to get frustrated. Worried I tapped too early.

M