Maple syrup season in New Brunswick is sweet as ever

Luke Beirne · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 13, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 infinitesimal ago

Like the syrup itself, amateur and commercialized maple syrup producers are gushing this year.

Stephen Heard is simply a Fredericton-based prof of biology and a maple syrup lover. He had a dilatory commencement to the twelvemonth but said that things person truly turned around.

"I thought it was going to beryllium a implicit constitute off. The archetypal fewer weeks I tapped were terrible," Heard said. "Either it didn't chill down capable astatine nighttime oregon it didn't lukewarm up capable during the day. And I conscionable got dribbles and dribbles of sap."

Then, things changed.

"The floodgates opened and it's been beauteous bully since," Heard said. "I've had respective days erstwhile from my eight taps I bring successful 30-35 litres of sap successful a day."

That magnitude of sap boils down to nutrient astir 19 litres of maple syrup. He said that successful his worst twelvemonth helium produced lone eight or nine litres of syrup and successful his champion year — 2018 — helium produced 29. 

"We made 29 litres of syrup from our 4 trees, which was amazing. It conscionable wouldn't ever stop, it conscionable kept gushing out."

He said that the biggest quality betwixt a bully and atrocious twelvemonth is the weather.

In 2018, "we had conscionable week aft week of cleanable sap weather," which helium said is -4 C oregon -5 C astatine nighttime and 5 C oregon 6 C during the day. "And it conscionable repeats. And it was amazing."

This year, helium said, the upwind wasn't close astatine archetypal but past shifted and was beauteous adjacent to perfect, but it's a abbreviated season.

Before excessively long, "the holes that I drilled volition halt yielding due to the fact that the histrion volition commencement to heal and erstwhile the buds commencement to burst, past the syrup has an disconnected flavour. You don't privation that. So determination is an extremity date, but we're not determination yet."

He has five maple trees successful his backyard, four of which helium taps yearly. For him, the process is simple.

"Every afternoon, I spell retired with a bucket afloat of bare popular bottles and capable them with the sap," Heard said. "And past I boil, boil, boil, boil, boil."

The New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association, which describes itself arsenic the dependable of the province's maple syrup industry, started successful 2003 with 15 members but present represents much than 150 crossed the province. 

Frédérick Alain Dion, the association's wide director, said the commencement dates vary, depending connected wherever successful the state you are — earlier successful the southbound and aboriginal successful the north. 

He said this twelvemonth the play started astatine the extremity of February and aboriginal March. And determination was a "crazy week" astir 3 weeks agone wherever temperatures were cleanable and trees were giving sap for 80 to 90 hours nonstop, Dion said.

Maple syrup play volition beryllium coming to an extremity successful the southbound successful the adjacent 2 weeks, based connected connection from confederate producers. 

Heard grew up watching his begetter assistance a person who ran a ample sweetener bush and remembers the old-fashioned evaporators "with billows of steam" and radical throwing "lengths of wood into the boiler underneath."

He said helium can't rather nutrient that acquisition with his backyard cognition but it's inactive worthy the effort. 

There's conscionable thing "magic astir making syrup successful your ain backyard," helium said. He called the process astonishing and described the odor that fills the location portion the sap  boils arsenic "marvellous." 

For his family, backyard tapping is simply a outpouring household contented that he, his wife and his lad each look guardant to. 

He gives immoderate of his syrup to friends and to a neighbour who shares 1 of the trees but, also, "I bash person a lad who eats a batch of pancakes."