It’s looking to be a sweet season for maple syrup as sap got an early start flowing from trees maintained by Monroe County Conservation District staff.

“We tapped around Feb. 7 and 8 and we’ve gotten a lot of sap already,” said Roger Spotts, environmental education coordinator at the district’s Kettle Creek Environmental Education Center. “We’ve been able to make about 15 gallons of syrup already, which for our season is ahead of schedule.”

The public will learn the history of maple sugaring, see how it’s made - and even get to taste it - during events scheduled for Saturday.

Preregistration is required and can be made by calling 570-629-3061,

Spotts said trees usually begin excreting sap in March, but February’s warmer-than-average temperatures sped up the process.

Above freezing daytime temperatures and cool nights signal spring for trees, which then begin sending sap to their branches to create leaves.

If it’s too cold, the sap temporarily stops flowing - and if it’s too warm, trees will begin their budding process. It sours the sap and puts an end to the maple syrup season.

“The area where we make syrup is about 75% sugar maple trees and then we have about 25% that are red maple,” Spotts said of the trees tapped at the sugarbush outside of Marshalls Creek.

Sap from both species is collected, blended together and boiled down to make the tastebud-pleasing syrup.

“The ratio varies but it typically takes 45 to 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup,” he said. “We collected about 750 gallons of sap already.”

Each tree typically produces about 15 to 20 gallons of sap per season. The substance drips out of the tap one drop at a time.

“It doesn’t pour out like a water spigot,” Spotts said.

What’s collected is taken to a wood-fired evaporator. When water is removed after a few hours of boiling, the maple syrup is finished.

The taste is unmistakable - and nothing like store-bought pancake syrup, Spotts said.

“The fake stuff is much thicker and gooier. Real maple syrup tends to be more watery and that’s because the fake stuff has thickeners and artificial sweeteners and preservatives in it,” he said.

Maple syrup also contains vitamins and minerals, unlike bottled pancake syrup.

“It is 100% maple syrup. Nothing is added,” Spotts said.

The center near Stroudsburg has been maintaining the sugarbush since 1977, and it now typically taps about 250 trees each season.

For the Saturday educational programs, Spotts said visitors will learn how Native Americans used primitive tools to tap trees, and how they shared their knowledge with early Pennsylvania pioneers, who modernized the process.

They’ll learn about the maples and see the tapping and collection process.

“And then the last step is our evaporator, where we show how the maple sap is cooked and changed into maple syrup,” Spotts said.

Of course, there will be time to sample the syrup, he said.

“The most amazing thing is that it is totally dependent on weather. Some years, you don’t have the right kind of weather. It gets too warm too fast, It stays too cold for too long and you simply don’t get as much sap and you can’t make as much syrup,” he said.

Other years have the just-right conditions to get sap flowing, he said.

“People don’t realize that it is more than just getting sap out of the tree. It depends on the weather, it depends on the health of the tree, it depends on how much rain we had last summer,” he said. “All of that has an impact on the sap, and therefore, the maple syrup we produce.”

The center doesn’t make enough syrup to sell, but Spotts said a maple sugar farmer from Honesdale will be on hand at the Saturday events.

There is a fee to attend.