Pulling maple sap to syrup

Is anyone pulling sap? I am trying to. Anyone doing this. Looking for pointers.

Once the temperatures stay above freezing night and day, the season is over. Here in Quebec we are maple syrup country. Over the last decade the sap's been running earlier almost every year. It seems now that if the trees aren't tapped by the beginning of February, it's very easy to miss the season altogether. This is why Thomas Jefferson never had any luck with it at Monticello.

Traditionally Michigan has a great season, but it is getting earlier and earlier every year. It started a month ago. I had some luck, but it got too hot too fast. Its in the 70's this week and we are done.

They are doing well at dads farm, we got a lot of sap. It came quick this year. I had some misadventures boiling. But have some great stuff still.

Back in late Jan/early Feb. we were thinking of tapping for sap, doing some reading and the temps were going above freezeing so we did one tree and were getting sap, so we did a few more. after I figured out an evaporating program that was productive we ended up with about 22 taps. things were going great. we have enough for our two families and gave a tiny (very tiny) bit away.

Temps are up and buds are starting and I will probably remove the taps today. I would like to prepare for next year. in the woods there are many maples. I want to identify each and identify what kind of maple they are. many are to small to tap. so I was figuring on transplanting some. I have had some luck moving some maples as high as 10-12 feet with a small backhoe, but would like to move bigger how big is too big?. I do have a excavator with a 1or maybe 1 1/2 yard bucket

How close do I dare dig (remove a tree) next to a tree I plan to tap

should I thin around the bigger maples? How far?

I have a few maples (I call fence row trees) that have a large trunk (maybe 2 foot DIA.) and it splits into many smaller (8-12"). as many as 7 or 8. should I prune these down to one? when would be the correct time of year to prune maples?