I haven't tapped maple trees since I was a kid, but for a couple years some pals and I tapped a dozen or so trees in the bush behind our houses. A couple of warm nights shouldn't stop the flow, it should flow until the buds swell. I recall we had to stop in mid April or so as the weather got warm and the bugs came out and sought out the sweet sap in our buckets. I'm also surprised that you say you had just a few drops in the bucket on your first day -- we used to consider a good flow on a good day to be one drop per second or faster -- often our cans would overflow between daily checkings.

Maybe it is the tree as you say it is old, but since you drilled into wet wood that doesn't sound like the problem. Did you remember to drill your holes slightly upwards to help things drip? Is your spigot in tight so that the sap isn't running down the bark? Did you drill at least a few inches into the sapwood? Are you just coming out of winter and the sap hasn't really begun to flow? (doesn't sound like it based on your temps). And please don't take this as an insult, but are you 100% certain it is a maple? Sorry I can't be of more help, but those are the only things I can think of.

To answer Don555's questions:

- Yes, I drilled upward
- Yes, the pipe is tight, and no sap is leaking around it
- I drilled about 3 inches, BUT I think I tapped the pipe in almost to the back of the hole.
- We had sub zero temps a week ago, but it's been thawing for 5 days now. Today it was 60F+!
- It is a sugar maple.

I know what you mean about the buckets normally overflowing. I just don't know what the deal is! Maybe I'll tap one of my two silver maples just to see if that old tree is the problem. Like I said, there are some large dead areas so maybe the trunk is twisted and I'm tapping the dead half??

The tree has to totally freeze at night and then during the day the tree must warm up with temps above freezing. Wind will cool down the tree. The freezing and then thawing of the tree will push out the sap. So ideally, a nice sunny calm day with warm temps right after a night where there is a few degrees of frost to freeze the tree will be a great maple sap producing day.

I am not surprised that there is no sap in your bucket when it hasn't frozen at night. Ours never do then either.

Where will you be boiling down the sap?

Brenda

This morning I tapped my two silver maples with 3/8" outer diameter pipes. It was another warm day and I got a couple inches of sap in each bucket. The tap on the old sugar maple is still bone dry. All I can think of is that I hit a dead part of the trunk or that I somehow screwed up the tap. Looks like I'll be settling for silver maple sap.

I'll be boiling the sap outside in a wood-heated temporary stove I put together. It's got a wide pan. I only plan on making a very small batch; my wife doesn't like maple syrup and I use very little. It's basically a test year to see if I can do it without spending any money (i.e. the wood fired homemade stove.)

What about tapping a different hole? or two?