Seeing your neighbors tend to buckets, bags and tubing in the woods will become a common sight in the coming days and weeks as sap collection season begins in Northeast Wisconsin. The recent stretch of weather that has included cool nights and warmer days has allowed hobbyists and commercial syrup makers to harvest sap from their trees.

It takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup, so a lot of trees need to be tapped to ensure there is enough to go around at your next pancake breakfast.

Bill Roethle from Hillside Apples in Casco says that because they use a vacuum system to harvest their sap, they were able to start tapping trees and collecting sap in early February. Those who rely on gravity to fill buckets and bags hanging on trees likely have been able to start collecting within the past week. For Roethle, it was another early start to the year.
 

Roethle estimates they are about halfway through their peak season, which allows them to cook several batches of their own syrup before selling other parts of their harvest to larger syrup producers. According to UW Extension, Wisconsin is currently the third-leading maple-producing state in the nation, making 556,000 gallons of maple syrup in 2025, with the highest yield per tap in the United States.