Back By Popular Demand!

This weekend at the Sugar Shack
Back by popular demand:
Our Famous Homemade Maple Sticky Buns

Open 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday

The Maple Syrup Legend

One Iroquois Legend Shrouded in the gray mists of history, some early man in North America discovered - long, long ago - that sweet sap runs in the spring time from the sugar maple tree.

Perhaps this same man, or some of his clansmen, or perhaps someone more distant, found that boiling this sap over a fire soon reduced it to a brown syrup; and this syrup, when cooked longer, soon hardened into brownish sugars of various types.

All the books known to us are silent on how this discovery and cookery actually first came about. One Iroquois legend tells of Woksis, an Indian chief, pulling his tomahawk from a maple tree and going off on a hunt. The weather was warm and the gash dripped sap into a bark vessel under the tree. The chief's squaw, toward evening needed water to cook their meal and used the water from the tree to save a trip to the spring. When the chief neared home, he smelled the odor of the sweet syrup and when he ate his meal he found the meat very tasty. And the legend ended with the Indians tapping maple trees to secure this tasty and concentrated source of sweetening.
This however, is a legend, and legends never need truth to be interesting. As a rule of thumb, the more interesting the legend, the less likelihood of its truth. And this legend stands among the most interesting.

Still, all accounts indicate that the Indians of the Lake States, southeastern Canada, New England, the Appalachian Mountains knew and used maple syrup a long time before the first explorers and colonists came to America.

Wanted!

The Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) (Anoplophora glabripennis) is an invasive insect from China that attacks and kills many healthy hardwood trees, including maple, boxelder, birches, elms, horsechestnut, poplars, and willow.  This beetle is a threat to our nursery, maple syrup, and forest product industries. If established, ALB would cause severe environmental and aesthetic damage to our urban trees, forests,
and parks.  ALB has been present in Brooklyn, New York, parts of Long Island, and in northern NewJersey for a number of years.  The recent discovery of the beetle in Worcester, Massachusetts, increases the risk to Connecticut’s trees.  Early detection of infestations and rapid response are crucial to successful eradication of the beetle.  “Over several years, we have been conducting surveys for ALB in southeastern Connecticut because of its presence in nearby Queens, New York”, said Dr. Kirby
Stafford, State Entomologist at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES), “additional help in looking for this beetle is important, particularly since its discovery is so near our northern border”.  CT DEP foresters, Cooperative Extension, Tree Wardens, and others are already assisting CAES in keeping an eye out for the beetle.

The adult ALB is ¾ to 1 ½ inches long, glossy black with white spots on the back. There are distinctive black and white bands on each segment of the long antennae. This beetle is often confused with our native Whitespotted Sawyer, which is bronzy-black with smaller or no white spots and no distinctive white bands on the antennae.  Good quality photographs of suspect beetles or tree damage can be sent to CAES.StateEntomologist@po.state.ct.us or call Dr. Stafford at (203) 974-8485.  According to Dr. Stafford, “we get a number of submissions of Whitespotted Sawyer beetles, but that is fine as it means people are looking for ALB.  We appreciate that. However, live insects or
wood samples should not be mailed or brought to us as ALB can readily escape many containers and spread the
infestation.  Our inspectors can come out to a suspect site to make identifications.”  Beetles can be killed by freezing

them for two days and shown to inspectors.

On infested trees, females will make rust-colored holes where she lays her eggs.  The large half-inch or more well-
defined holes (sometimes with sap flowing out of the trunks and branches) mark where one beetle exited the tree.  It
is very important that any trees detected with signs of ALB (exit holes, egg sites, running sap) or life stages of the
beetle be immediately reported to CAES or the USDA-APHIS-Plant Pest Quarantine office in Wallingford, CT.
Our two agencies have the state and federal statutory responsibility, respectively, for dealing with plant pests like
ALB.  Dr. Stafford says “do take pictures; collect notes that may help with identification of an infestation, and report
insects or damage to us.  We can determine if the insect is the Asian longhorned beetle or some other species and
respond accordingly”.  U.S. Forest Service, USDA-APHIS-PPQ identification fact sheets, and additional
information on what to do about suspect invasive insects are available on the CAES website (www.ct.gov/caes).