AUGUSTA – It was 44 degrees at noon Thursday when a bevy of students and officials watched a maple syrup producer tap an ancient sugar maple tree on the front lawn of the Blaine House.

While syrup boiled furiously nearby in preparation for making sugar-on-snow candy, Joe Suga of Vassalboro used a hand auger to drill into the tree. As he pulled the tool from the trunk, the sap instantly began pouring down the bark – a welcome sign for both the visitors and Maine’s producers and a clear harbinger of spring.

Maine’s maple season is a bit behind schedule this year, as cold temperatures have hung around late into the month.

“If we had tapped this tree last week, as originally planned, we wouldn’t have had any sap,” Deanne Herman of the Maine Department of Agriculture said.

Sugar maples need warm days and below-freezing nights to capture what is called “liquid gold.” The shifting temperatures cause the starches within the tree to turn to sugar and forces the flow of sap to begin.

Maine is the country’s second-highest maple syrup producer, with more than 300,000 gallons of syrup from 1.5 million trees. Ninety percent of all Maine’s syrup is produced in Somerset County.

“The old-timers used to say, ‘Make sap by March 10,'” Donna Tracy, president of the Maine Maple Producers Association, said. “The syrup really just started flowing this week.”

Compared to recent winters, the sap is getting a late start, but “this is more like an old-fashioned winter,” she said. Tracy said that as of Thursday, very few producers had begun to boil syrup. “At this point, we are just beginning to gather it,” she said.

“It’s really running now,” Michael Smith of Winthrop said. “This week’s temperatures are exactly what we wanted.”

As they gathered syrup and made candy Thursday, the Maine producers shared maple facts: It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, and an average 40-year-old tree will yield about 10 gallons of sap per season.

Adele Suga of Suga Country Products in Vassalboro sells sugaring supplies, and she said she has seen a big increase in the number of young families coming in for equipment.

“They are tapping one or two trees in their yards and making it a real family event,” she said.

The warm days came just in the nick of time for some producers, who have opted to move Maine Maple Sunday celebrations up one week because the traditional date, March 27, coincides with Easter.

Maine Maple Sunday has become a sugar-making tradition in Maine, when dozens of sugarhouses are open for tours, demonstrations and activities. This year it has gained national attention, Herman said.

A satellite television show from Los Angeles, Estelle TV, that promotes international travel will be in Maine next week filming a segment on Maine Maple Sunday and the sugaring season.

“We have educated the public that Maine Maple Sunday is always the fourth Sunday of March. This issue promoted lots of discussion among our members,” Tracy said. “In the end, we said members could decide for themselves if they needed to move their individual event.”

Most sugarhouses offer free tasting and live demonstrations of how syrup is produced, from tap to table. Many offer a variety of other activities, including dining on syrup on pancakes or ice cream, taking a sugarbush tour, enjoying sleigh or wagon rides, listening to live music and more.

At Thursday’s tapping, Maine’s first lady, Karen Baldacci, said her favorite way to eat syrup is on pancakes. A display set up by Eric Ellis of Maine Maple Products of Madison showed there is quite a variety in syrup products beyond the traditional candy. These include maple mustards, granulated maple syrup, blocks of hardened syrup and maple cream.

Ellis poured boiled syrup on fresh snow, and as it hardened, rolled it on a stick, creating toffee-like lollipops. These were quickly grabbed by a group of high school students from Santiago, Chile, who had been touring the Blaine House.

“It was delicious and sweet,” Francisco Walker, 16, said after tasting maple syrup for the first time. “Kind of like caramel.”

A list of sugarhouses participating in Maine Maple Sunday can be found at www.getrealmaine.com, the Maine Department of Agriculture’s Web site. Because some producers have opted to hold their celebration early, it is recommended that visitors call ahead.