Each spring we kick off the maple syrup season with a variety of public programs and tours that are open to everyone. Check out our Calendar of Events for a complete listing of Maple Syrup Tours. The Ney Nature Center taps over 100 trees including a gravity line of about 20 taps. Each year we produce approximately 20 gallons of syrup and you can purchase a bottle in our office.
When the sap flows in March and/or April, we will also welcome anyone who would like to volunteer. Call the office to sign up for a volunteer shift. Dress for the weather and wear sturdy shoes. The trails are muddy and intermediate hiking is involved in the sap collection.
2024 Update (as of 2/12/24)
We have started tapping our Maple trees! Maple Syrup Season starts when the temperatures are above freezing during the day but below freezing at night. With the warm temperatures these past few weeks, we decided to tap half of our Maple trees in the sugar bush. This is the earliest that we have ever tapped trees at Ney Nature Center, having started a week earlier than we did in 2017. With colder weather moving back in, we wanted to keep some trees in reserve in case the cold lasts long enough to start affecting the health of the tap holes in our trees. We plan to tap the rest of our trees once we get back to warmer weather.
You may have noticed colored tape showing up on some of our trees this week. As part of our ongoing Maple Syrup production, we are updating our tracking system in our sugar bush. The colors help us keep track of which tree are getting tapped this year, which ones we plan to tap next year, and which trees we need to wait on tapping due to their age. We also have marked any trees that have been tapped but are not running yet. This may be due to the ongoing drought or other factors. We will be keeping an eye on those trees to see how they develop throughout the season.
Feel free to stop in to the office if you have any more questions!
Blue – tapped this year
Yellow – will be tapped next year
Orange – we need to wait on tapping this tree for a few years Pink – we tapped this tree, but it doesn’t seem to be running.