Tapping a maple tree

I'm based in Gloucestershire in the UK and I'm wondering if now is the time to try tapping a maple tree we have in the garden? There doesn't seem to be much on the internet about this being done in the UK? Does anyone here have any experience with this?

Thanks

Hi, Zoe

I found some answers to your question here:

https://www.quora.com/Can-all-maple-trees-be-tapped-So-can-U-K-maple-trees-be-tapped-and-then-can-maple-syrup-be-made

There were 3 answers though this one seemed to answer your question:

Several varieties can be tapped, but the problem in the UK is not the trees, it is the weather. You need just the right range of temperatures to make the sap run. You need temperatures well below freezing at night and above freezing in the daytime. In New Brunswick, those temperatures typically begin in March and run into April. It can be going along great guns, with great sap runs and then a warm spell occurs and it just stops.

I am not sure that you would dependably get the right range of temperatures in the UK.

Maybe someone with more knowledge than I have will be able to answer your question.

Anne Miller wrote:
Maybe someone with more knowledge than I have will be able to answer your question.

No Anne, that was perfect!  I tap my trees in February because that's when the freezing night, thawing days cycle usually starts.  I say usually because it's been that way most of the winter this year!  I haven't tapped yet as I will wait for February and if that doesn't work out for some reason I'll just give the trees a break this year.

Thanks, Anne and Greg, that's what I thought temperature-wise. Will it run whenever the temperature is right as in multiple times in one season? We are just nearing the end of a week of temperatures like that but I haven't got my spile yet!

I'm not sure how cold you get in mid winter as that may affect how they "run".  Here it's well below freezing most of the winter.  In mid March is starts to get above freezing for a few hours a day.  Once we've had several days above freezing during the daytime it seems like the trees start to wake up and the sap starts flowing.  It flows when it's above freezing during the day (higher the temp the better) and yet reliably freezing overnight (probably -3C or lower).  But trees are like cats and you can't really count on them to do what you'd expect.  Mine make sap about 1/2 of the days when I think they would.

In the UK, if you don't get as cold through mid-winter, they may run at weird times.  

You could always cobble up a temporary spile from a piece of tubing until your real spile arrives...