Barry as normal, I am a bit confused?
1) What type of pump are they using ?
2) Is there electricity near the holding tank?
3) How high is the hill and how long is the pipe run?
4) What is the pump head limit?
At home we do not pump the sap to the sugar-shack, we use a tanker and move it to the sugarhouse. It is pumped into the tanker and then out in to the holding tank. From that point it is gravity flow in to the boiling vat.
Depending upon the time during the sap flow season the sugar content will be close to 2% so the actual weight of the sap is very close to that of normal drinking water. During the boil off some say it is 43 gallons to make one gallon of syrup. So you are boiling off 42 gallons of water and particulates. Bottom line is you are basically moving water.
So I would think a normal jet pump would be able to move the sap up a hill for a couple hundred feet with enough flow to fill a holding tank at the top of the hill. If it is a trash pump I think the ability to pump water up a hill is very limited, little head capabilities.
Doing a hundred tress doesn’t sound like a hobby syrup making project to me. That is a bunch of trees and a lot of sap to boil down. Again nothing is mentioned about the evaporator they are using so it is difficult to guess what is really going to happen.
Here is an interesting site on hobby syrup making.
Hobby Maple Syrup Production, F-36-02
Just my two cents
