A 16 quart bucket of sap, half full, weighs over 15 pounds. One person can be expected to gather between 750-1,000 buckets per day. That's between 11,250 pounds and 15,000 pounds per day or 1,500 to 2,000 gallons of sap! For a large operation with 12,000 taps, you would need at least 12 gatherers who would move over 180,000 pounds of sap in a day or 24,000 gallons of sap.
The same sugarbush with 12,000 taps would need approximately 80 miles of plastic pipeline! All of the sap moves directly to the collection tank at the bottom of the hill.
This tank holds 210 gallons of sap. That's the same as 480 quarts or 60 half-full buckets.
The tractor is used to gather the tanks and take them to the sugarhouse. Only two workers are needed to collect a collection tank.
To the Sugar House!
