Sugarbush 2001 is now over. See Blandford Nature Center's maple trees being tapped for sap and experience the making of sap into maple syrup.
Visitors can even taste the finished product and purchase syrup.
During the summer, trees make sugar through a process called photosynthesis. The tree uses this sugar to fuel its growth in spring and summer. As fall approaches, growth slows and the sugar is stored in sap throughout the trunk and branches. The dissolved sugar may help prevent the sap from freezing in the winter and damaging the tree. In late winter, cold nights followed by warm days will cause the sap to flow again.