Maple syrup starting early this year

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Maple Sugar is the first harvested crop of the year but that's not normally until the end of February.

However, one maple syrup producer is starting early this year because of this mild weather.

The steam and smoke is already pouring out of the Red Bucket Sugar Shack in Worthington making maple syrup.

But Jeff Mason who's part owner of the Shack is starting two weeks earlier than everyone else because the temperatures are perfect.

“It's got to freeze at night to change your sugar into starch at night time, during the daytime it changes to maple Sugar and carbon dioxide and it needs that for the tree to push the sap up to feed the trees,” said Mason.

Instead of paying attention to the calendar they're paying attention to Mother Nature.

The squirrels are already getting to the tubes and even bears which shows that they're coming out of hibernation more than a month early.

“Normally your main sugar comes in in March but this year it's been warm all winter, the weather patterns don't seem to be changing, so we feel that we got to get going on it because it could turn around and not freeze,” said Mason.

And that's a huge gamble because if you tap the trees too early the taps can dry out.

But they've done it before. Fifteen years ago they took that chance and it worked out in their favor. “We made out good that year because it dried up in the middle of March, it was all over, the sugar was done, and the people or producers who didn't tap early enough didn't make the syrup,” said Mason.

The Red Bucket Sugar Shack taps more than 9,000 trees and is hoping that they're gamble pays off and the syrup doesn't dry up too early this year.