We tapped some of our trees for the first time today. At first, I was having trouble with the sap dripping out around the spiles, so I tore strips off a plastic grocery bag and wrapped them around the spiles like Teflon tape on a threaded pipe fitting. This caused the spile to fit snugly and created a plastic washer to keep the sap from dripping down the bark beneath the spile. Once I figured that out, I found the trees to be very productive–at least the maples, anyway. The black walnut trees I tapped are barely dripping.
