It turns out that maple sap is a little like your average Minnesotan – the minute the temperature gets above freezing, it wants to run outside and get some fresh air. But a good cold snap makes it hunker down inside with a bowl of soup and a hot toddy. Maple sap moves the most when temperatures are above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. The warmth of the day draws the sap up the trunk to the limbs, but the cold at night sends it back down to the roots. The syrup taps divert that flow into the bucket. Once the nights get warm enough, the sap stops returning to the roots, and syrup season is over.
During a warm spell in February we tapped our first few trees: the ones at the edge of the woods, where it warms up earlier. One of the trees gave up a good third of a bucket of sap before the daytime highs dropped below freezing again. So now we have a third of a bucket of frozen sap. Sap-cicle, anyone?
