Students in the building trades class at Broome-Tioga BOCES are producing homemade maple syrup — about 50 bottles per year — using a reverse osmosis system they built themselves.

Mark and Susan Lockwood have made a hobby of tapping maple trees on their Seekonk property each year for the past 24 years. In a homemade evaporator, gallons of sap are boiled all day long at the end ...