Only glee chewing gum, and some sold in the far east contain chicle.in guatemala, mexico, and belize, chicle still represents an important part of the economy for the chicleros who harvest it. From september to january, a time of torrential rains, the chicleros hike out to remote parts of the rainforest, seeking either virgin chicle trees or those that were tapped several years before. They climb into the tree and make a series of cuts with their machete, taking care that they cut only deep enough to allow the white sap to bleed out, but not deep enough to expose the tree to insects or infection. Each tapping only yields about 2.5 pounds of gum over a six-hour period, and a chiclero will tap 6-12 trees a day in order to make his quota.