Sap Stealers (2013, house, purchase)

[gcberry]

Sticky-fingered thieves target sap in Maine apparently for home use | Fox News

[namder1]

how low can ya get..............

[inthetrees]

drove past a crazy setup of tubes in the woods going into a 55 gallon drum a few weeks ago on 126 in whitefield or jefferson, now i wonder if it was legit

[roadrat]

Originally Posted by inthetrees

drove past a crazy setup of tubes in the woods going into a 55 gallon drum a few weeks ago on 126 in whitefield or jefferson, now i wonder if it was legit

If you could see it from the road it was most likely legal, collecting sap has gone way beyond single buckets on individual trees. long networks of tube will stretch far and wide and collect sap from many trees and bring it into a single container either a 55 gal drum or 275 gal totes.



bill

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by roadrat

If you could see it from the road it was most likely legal, collecting sap has gone way beyond single buckets on individual trees. long networks of tube will stretch far and wide and collect sap from many trees and bring it into a single container either a 55 gal drum or 275 gal totes.

bill

Friends of ours expanded their business last year. The only buckets they have now are in front of their homes. A lot has changed over the years.



Runs through tubing.


Holds here in stainless steel tanks.

[elston]

When I was a kid back in the 1940's (in N Hatley Quebec) Dad used to tap the maple trees around our house and down the street where he had permission....in front of the library etc)....it was a very small home operation. I used to go out with him to collect the sap from the buckets on the trees. Mom boiled it down on the wood stove in the house. Sometimes he would say someone had been stealing our sap. I guess the sap is sweet enough that school boys would drink it.

[Mad Kent]

Originally Posted by elston

When I was a kid back in the 1940's (in N Hatley Quebec) Dad used to tap the maple trees around our house and down the street where he had permission....in front of the library etc)....it was a very small home operation. I used to go out with him to collect the sap from the buckets on the trees. Mom boiled it down on the wood stove in the house. Sometimes he would say someone had been stealing our sap. I guess the sap is sweet enough that school boys would drink it.

You bet it's sweet

As kids in the early 70's we "stole" a few sips on occasion from my uncle's operation. It was already tubed even back then and most of the tapped trees were on a hillside with tubes leading to a locked collection hut, actually a garage with a trailer-mounted tank inside. Early tubes were soft rubber like a garden hose, not PVC like today. They were easily damaged so wild animals and dogs were a big concern to my uncle, deer fences only go so far and even an animal as small as a fox could damage or disconnect tubes. This was just a hobby to him and he didn't have time to monitor the tubes every day in season so he hired his son (my cousin) and me to survey the tubes and repair or report any damage.

This required all but 10-15 minutes a day and earned us $5 each per week. Even though that was plenty of pocket money for a 9-year-old in 1972, this was administered by parents to avoid us making unwise investments such as the purchase of 50 bags of potato chips. Being denied free access to this 'trust fund' we decided we were entitled to compensate ourselves by diverting small amounts of sap into paper cups.