Tapping Maple Trees in 2026
We took to the woods to tap our trees on February 18th and finished on the 26th. With the significant amount of snow on the ground and no warm spells, there is little structure to the snow, so we were all using snowshoes. Moving up and down the hills, around the trees, over and under pipelines was slow going and we found that our rate of tapping was around 70% of normal. A great physical and cardio workout though!
I enjoy tapping as I get to visit and inspect about half of the trees each year. With the drought last summer, there was concern that tree growth might be impacted and that the tap holes we drilled in 2025 might not heal well. I was very pleased to see that the vast majority of tap holes had healed over completely and that our trees are growing well. It was also very encouraging to see the vigorous growth among the young maple trees in the areas where we removed the diseased beech trees over the last three years. With less competition for light, nutrients and water, the remaining trees are thriving. There are many future taps developing throughout our forests.
Tapping is a fairly quiet activity and we enjoy the sounds of the woods as we work. The most common sound is the constant murmur and chortle of nuthatches. These small grey birds walk up and down tree stems and feed on seeds and anything else they can get hold of. Noisier are ravens that soar over the woods searching for food. Over the last decade, ravens have become much more common in our area and they emit a wide range of interesting sounds from clucks and chirps to caws which are similar to crows. Another common bird is the pileated woodpecker. We hear these hammering away on trees and also issuing their loud and raspy call as they swoop throughout the forest.
There are also animal tracks in the snow which tells us which animals are active and what they are doing. White-tailed deer tracks are now a common sight, moving from the hemlock and cedar areas along the watercourse into the hardwood forests at night to browse on twigs. Deer stick together in the winter, and have moved into our maple forest in recent years. Regrettably, deer enjoy maple so many young maple trees get browsed and die off. With the deer come coyotes, who pass through the farm regularly in search of prey. They will kill a deer from time to time, providing food for all as the carcasses are picked clean! Fisher tracks (fisher are large members of the weasel family) are a regular occurrence.
There appear to be two animals traversing the farm regularly. They leave a telltale hopping track with pairs of prints about 20 inches apart. Fisher are one of the few animals that prey on porcupines, but they will also take squirrels, raccoons and turkeys. With all the predators hanging around, we see fewer squirrel tracks – which is fine with us as they will often chew on pipelines.
With so many sights and sounds in the forest, we can get distracted when we are tapping and miss drilling a tree or putting a spile in tap hole. We find these errors pretty quickly once we sap starts to run!
For more about the process of tapping trees, be sure to check out our Tree to Treat page, which includes at the bottom of it a video about the process of tapping.
It looks like the weather will be warming up and the sap should flow after get a few warm days in a row to thaw our the trees. Our store will be open 10 to 4 daily starting March 7th. Orders can be paced online anytime, or by calling the farm at 613-256-5216.