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Local Maple Syrup Production
March 16 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Gary Shepherd, owner of Bonz Beach Farms, operates a syrup-making business with a tree tap system that moves sap through 2 miles of tubing into a collection pumphouse. See the sap as it is pumped into the 4200-gallon tank that begins the syrup processing.
“I started with 60 taps in the first year I made syrup,” says Shepherd.
“Now we have about 4,300 taps.” Shepherd says the season goes by quickly. It runs from mid-February to the end of April.
Watch the steps in the automated manufacturing shop that can produce about 40 gallons of syrup an hour. See the steps needed that take about 43 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup. Learn about the thousands of trees tapped and how that sap becomes syrup, sugar, candy, mustard, and more.
Syrup, sugar, candy, and mustard are available for purchase.
Location: 20706 Bonz Beach Hwy., Onaway, MI 49765