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Date: 4/4/2022
MONSON — Bryson Busiere was only 9-years-old when he tapped his first maple tree and began collecting sap. It was his dad’s idea to try making maple syrup.
“My dad said, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’ We really had no idea what we were doing. We made our first taps out of aluminum pieces,” said Busiere.
Busiere and his dad tapped 15 trees, collecting enough sap to make a single gallon of maple syrup — enough for a few family breakfasts of pancakes and French toast. They even gave a little away.
“We just tapped a few trees around our yard to see what we would get, and we got a little bit of sap. We basically made enough for ourselves,” said Busiere.
The yield may have been small, but maple sugaring stuck with Busiere. He’s 21-years old now and has turned his boyhood experiment into a growing business. His dad named it Bryson’s Maple Syrup and today they sell maple syrup, sugar, candy, peanuts and popcorn out of a roadside stand at the family home on 289 Lower Hampden Rd. in Monson.
“This was just supposed to be a little joke, a hobby. We never expected it to get to where we are now,” said Busiere.
Busiere tapped more than 1,000 trees this year and produced 165 gallons of syrup. That’s about what he did last year. He hopes to tap 2,000 trees next year and keep growing the business.
“This year was ok. We had a warm spell and then a cold spell. There were several days when the sap wasn’t running at all because it was so cold. We like to make more syrup each year, but we can’t control Mother Nature. She’s in charge,” he said.
Busiere said maple sugaring season is his favorite time of year, getting up around dawn and working through the day and night until around 1 a.m. He does that every day until the sap stops running.
“We are out late, and we do get tired, but there’s nothing we can do about that. As much coffee as you drink, it won’t keep you up,” said Busiere. “I love being in here making the syrup. Collecting the sap and making the syrup are my two favorite things during the season.”
Busiere collects sap from trees on several pieces of land around town. He doesn’t own the land. Other people do and they let him use it - but they are not just being nice.
“We have a trade agreement. They let me tap their trees and I give them a case of syrup. It’s a fair trade,” says Busiere. Each case has a dozen eight-ounce bottles of syrup.
Twelve years ago, the Busieres boiled sap on a homemade evaporator another sugar maker gave them. Today they use a state-of-the-art system that produces two gallons of syrup an hour. It used to take eight hours to make just one gallon.
It takes a lot of grit and determination to stomp through the snow and collect sap in the middle of the night. Busiere usually makes one round a day, sometimes two if the sap is running strong. He said he is not getting rich on the wealth of sap Mother Nature provides, however that’s ok because he’s not running the business only to make a living.
“I see how happy it makes people when you give them a fresh bottle of maple syrup — something that I made. I’m happy to offer such a unique product,” he said.
During the off season, Busiere works as a carpenter for a local contractor. He enjoys the job but told Reminder Publishing he always looks forward to late winter and early spring, when the ground is muddy and the sap is flowing.
“I still call it my hobby. Other people might call it a job because of how much time I spend on it,” said Busiere. “I guess it’s a hobby and a business.”
Busiere isn’t taking his success for granted. He says it’s “crazy” how far they’ve come since that backyard experiment.