Because the bin seems rather damp and because bag systems evaporate moisture quickly everything should come out even there. As long as the vinegar trap is on a firm flat foundation and not in danger of tipping over you should be ok there too. The only problem would be if one night you open a fine bottle of wine to share and descover horror of all horrors swimmers. But to solve that dip the tip of a finger in and the drop of wine should contain the offending fruit fly. No harm. I actually have no problem with fruitflys below the fine mesh cloth I cover my bins with. No elastic. For some reason the flys never seem to think to fly a couple of inches down to get free. Any wine trap I have ever used has been on a high surface or pillar outside the mesh. And yes I so know that feeling of disturbing what should not be disturbed in a worm bin. I figure the more fruit flys in the bin the more workers getting the material just right for the worms. If you had a plastic bin I would suggest quickly tossing in megga bedding shreds. But with the bag system you should be perfect. -From what I have read. I do not have a bag system, but they sound real nice.

I used to see cool mites. Then this fly that never seemed to go anywhere but the bin, and likes to follow each other around and stand in pairs with their tails touching and one dragging around the other came and the mites disappeared. Then even the flys dissapeared. Maybe just one or two now and again. I do not even seem to be able to get mites to grow anymore. I even dump in water until it pours out the bottom.

I guess you found out how much food is too much. That is probably good to do once in a while just to be sure the system is as productive as it can be.

Fun with Fruit Flys.

I used to freeze my scraps to kill fruit fly eggs. Now I get too many scraps to fit in my freezer, but I did find that freezing, in combination with keeping the bin tightly lidded, worked really well on keeping the fruit flies down. Once they're in there, however, I have not had much luck on getting them to leave.

I fteeze scraps only because i have an emence frozen area outside come warmer weather i wont. Anyway I fail to see how freezing kills eggs. Around here fruitfly eggs over winter and hatch when there is food next season.

The only way i see freezing working is if you thaw for a few days to let the eggs hatch then refreeze to kill adults.

"The only way i see freezing working is if you thaw for a few days to let the eggs hatch then refreeze to kill adults." There is something that I read about that works exactly that way. Let me think. It is moths in flour. Freeze for a number of days. Room temperature. And then freeze again. It does lower I think it is the B vitamins in the flour.

I fteeze scraps only because i have an emence frozen area outside come warmer weather i wont. Anyway I fail to see how freezing kills eggs. Around here fruitfly eggs over winter and hatch when there is food next season.

The only way i see freezing working is if you thaw for a few days to let the eggs hatch then refreeze to kill adults.

Bentley did an experiment and it seems to work. I think freezing kills eggs, it's just in the wild they find enough places that won't freeze that hard (our freezer temps) for that long. Think river banks or ponds warmed by water, caves, natural compost piles, nowadays our houses etc. Only a few have to live to restart the cycle next year, why we get a few months grace before the bugs really come out.
http://www.redwormcomposting.com/worm-composting/fruit-fly-freezing-wrap-up/
I'm over a year now with the Inn and no flies or gnats.

For getting rid of them, there are Bentleys nematodes, his worm inn got infested recently.

I'd also recommend a good vacuum to get the breeders. Stick the nozzle under the mess and get them to fly up. With good suction you can even pick them out of the air as soon as they fly up if you open the lid right up go at them with a fork. Can do that daily, nice thing about the mesh.

Also, if you can get any VC out of your systems, putting a layer on top of new feedings would help. Anything not to have a direct path to fruits.

And of course, holding off some feedings. Maybe a hardcore multiple method of attack can get you free of them.

The mites are weird, harmless but their populations do move around. When I started my inn I had tons of the large white mites, then they mostly went and I had lots of the smaller brown, faster moving mites instead. Then the worm pop got bigger and those went down. BTW one thing Bentley mentioned about flies and food, in the 360 tray system experimenting with, he had an unfrozen/thawed apple core there that's been there for a month (iirc) now. That means a month of fly breeding space. So freezing not only will kill some eggs to avoid fly/gnat introduction, but if it allows food to be processed faster there's less fruit for the flies to breed on.

Luck

Posted by mr_yan none (My Page) on Thu, Jan 19, 12 at 8:07
Anyway I fail to see how freezing kills eggs. Around here fruitfly eggs over winter and hatch when there is food next season.
The only way i see freezing working is if you thaw for a few days to let the eggs hatch then refreeze to kill adults.
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It depends on the temperature of the freezer. Most household freezers maintain a temp of -10F to 0F. A couple days at that temp and the eggs will die.