I've been getting black gnat looking bugs in my sap collecting containers. Their maybe the size of a small mosquito. There alive until I dump out the sap. Now for my question, as soon as I collect the sap, I filter it threw two layers of white cotton tee shirt. Is this alright to do? I can't see where it would be a problem, but would like a more experienced opinion. It has been pretty warm here, so I have been collecting every 8 to 12 hours.
Thanks, Mike

Yep, get bugs all the time. They are no problem. Mice, squirrels and other such critters and I would not use the sap.

thank you. Yesterday, they was full of big flies. I dumped that and washed the containers good. Dang things was getting in around the taps, so I made a foam gasket to fit over the tap and fit between the tree and container. I had no bugs this morning.

The filter is your friend.
Filter as often as you can.

I agree with grape stomper the filter is your friend and remember you will be boiling it down so I wouldn't worry a lot about some bug germs

why I like bags!

You can use cloth of the type you stated for a filter. They also make commercial filters you can use and they filter out bugs and other foreign materials. Bags eliminate these issues, yes they do but where we take our sap for cooking they used to have 3-400 trees on bags and every year he would have 15-20% ripped by coons and squirrels. I sold him some of my live traps for the coons for a food grade tote, but as he expanded his operation and got more sap customers they discontinued leasing those trees and eliminated the bags. I thought seriously about the bags over our several hundred 5-6 gallon buckets with covers until I found out how many he replaced per year while the season was on.

Bryce

A friend of my dad's runs around 1,200 bags. That just seems like too much work. We've switched over to lines completely, except a few bags hung on trees behind camp. I think we have around 125 taps on lines.

When we only tapped a few trees we would filter through a full sheet of bounty. That would filter the bugs and crud. Now we run a reverse osmosis system. I don't bother filtering any more. There is a filter in the system to remove all that stuff. That said, I do make it a point to pick out all the flies. The rest the filter gets.

To answer you question, unless you have rodent in your bucket your and fine. One thing to watch for is when your sap starts to get cloudy. That means that the season is coming to an end. Once the buds start it is time to end it.

Pretty sure that my season here is done. We are looking at temps over freezing for the next week. I will keep an eye on it but doubt I will get much more now. We shall see.

Our collect today was looking a bit cloudy.

I hope a couple colder nights will add some time to the season. No collection today but will do again tomorrow. Unfortunately this enterprise is tree and weather driven. Man has to adjust accordingly. I can see why the big operators go to the lines and vacuum. It is not just for speed and efficiency. There is a far, far more consistent sap collection from season to season with the vacuum system. I was looking at the records of the place we take sap and over the last 5 years his per tree (tap) gallons per season were remarkably consistent.

Bryce

I hope it's not done yet. I'd like to boil one more time.

I'm done here, just to warm for any flow. Couple more freezing nights woulda been nice. Mike

We had three warm flow days and now back to low 30's Hi's for at least a week than some predicted mid 40's(below 32 nights), can I get another flow?

Well, I'm done. It went from clear yesterday to cloudy today.; Oh well, next year. Thanks for the help.

Cloudy sap does not necessarily mean your done. I've made good syrup with cloudy sap. As long as its not buddy, sour or signs of metabolism or any other off tastes boil it.

Cloudy sap means the end Is In sight.

Cooler Friday and Saturday and Sunday. Looks like some good 40s early next week. The 3-4 dry days will help as that 3 inches of wet snow all melted already and things are a tad wet and muddy.
Had some equipment issues today so we were not real productive today. Big day yesterday with 800 gallons collected.
Bryce