Photosynthesis Season
This is the most important season for syrup production - photosynthesis season!
The trees are busy making sugars through photosynthesis, using those sugars for growth, and storing those sugars for future use (and for us to make syrup with). It's estimated that mature maples generally have 2 - 3 years worth of sugars stored in the tree. Those are stored in case of bad years (drought, insect invasion, etc.). A mature tree has around 1,000 pounds of sugar in it!
Photosynthesis is probably the most important process on Earth. Nearly nothing happens without it. The fuel you put in your car? That's the result of ancient photosynthesis (if you want a really great demonstration and explanation of this, check out this "Meet the Fossils" video produced by CBS). Eating something today? That's the result of recent photosynthesis whether it's directly producing your fruits, vegetables, and grains, or providing fodder for animals to eat. Breathing oxygen? That's the byproduct of photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis provides nearly all the energy available on earth, for humans and for the rest of the natural world. Energy is so readily and magically available to us thanks to huge stores of fossil fuels we've recently and temporarily tapped into, that we rarely consider where our energy comes from. As Nate Hagens like to say, we've become energy blind. Unfortunately, this energy blindness has political, economic, social, and ecological consequences which we're in the midst of right now (but it's likely only the beginning of the major impacts). If you're interested in become a little more energy "seeing", check out, the Energy Blind video and the rest of The Great Simplificationvideos and podcasts for great insight into our current situation and potential paths forward.
And, back to the maple trees and photosynthesis. Did you know that the seedlings in a maple forest aren't able to produce enough energy on their own to stay alive? Way down on the forest floor, they don't receive enough sunlight (since it's almost all captured or blocked by the leaves of the larger trees) to photosynthesize enough to meet their own needs. They survive with a little help from their friends. In this case, those friends are the mature trees (some of them their parents). The seedlings are connected to other trees through an underground network of roots and fungus. Sugars from the mature trees pass through that network to the seedlings to keep them alive. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child, and maple forests are perfect examples of that.