Post Messenger Recorder -

When temperature and sunlight are favorable in February, maple tree sap begins to flow in a tree's wood, just inside the bark.  If there is a natural or drill-made port, sap comes out of the tree and may become an icicle as temperatures drop.  With about 4 percent sugar, sap does not freeze as quickly as pure water freezes.

All maple species, including sugar, silver, black, red, hybrids, and even box elder, the compound-leafed maple, move sap in spring.  As soon as the flower and leaf buds begin to enlarge and grow, the sap no longer flows out through natural and artificial ports.  Exporting sap out of the tree is not the purpose of the flow.  The tree could use this sap to grow and expand leaves.

Some woodpeckers, including sapsuckers, make holes through the tree bark and drink the sap.  Other animals take sap, too, either from the sapsucker's holes or from natural leakage.  Some animals, including squirrels, cheat and gnaw into apparatus that are intended for collecting sap to make sugar, syrup and candy.

Homemakers can make teeny batches of maple syrup, too, by collecting sap and boiling it slowly on a stovetop.