I'm not an expert or a veteran per se, but it may be protein poisoning (sour crop disease) from overfeeding.

A poster at thegardenforum.org found a good document about this condition:
" Sour crop or protein poisoning. This "disease" is actually the result of too much protein in the bedding. This happens when the worms are overfed. Protein builds up in the bedding and produces acids and gases as it decays (Gaddie, op. cit.). According to Ruth Myers (1969): "when you see a worm with a swollen clitellum13 or see one crawling aimlessly around on top of the bedding, you can just bet on sour crop and act accordingly, but fast". Her recommended solution is a "massive dose of one of the mycins, such as farmers give to chicken or cattle". Farmers wishing to avoid these or similar antibiotics should work to prevent sour crop by not overfeeding and by monitoring and adjusting pH on a regular basis. Keeping the pH at neutral or above will preclude the need for these measures."

Cited Source
www.organicagcentre.ca/DOCs/ Vermiculture_FarmersManual_gm.pdf

This might not be what is happening to your worms, but you
might want to try to limit your foodstock a bit and add a little more paper bedding to see if it helps.

You may want to post the question at the garden forum. Since this forum has had a mass exodus(including myself).

Charles

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to the Garden Forum

frogonalog,

That was very informative!! Your descriptions sound alot like what my worms are going through. You are right, I have been dumping alot of foods into the bin, afraid they might go hungry. I have decided to not add any more food and see what happen. I just hope I still have enough worms left to repopulate the bins. Thanks

p.s. Thanks for the link. Even though i'm mostly a lurker on this forum, I was wondering where everybody was!

SKIP THE LIME!!! worms do fine in an acidic environment and will seek the areas of the bin prefered - they will not likely eat more than is healthy for them, particularly if there's plenty of bedding, and if the feed you're using is fruit and veg scrap, they're not getting 'too much protein'

I have hordes of worms in compost bins that get up to 50 pounds or more of produce dept scrap daily, including "high protein" grains and even whole eggs and plenty of acidic citrus, but there's also plenty of shredded paper and coarse sawdust added regularly to take care of excess moisture and maintain aeration

I'd suspect you're allowing the bin to be too wet and contain too much wet food waste

Bill

Hey Bill,

Is it better to have a dryer bedding than a wetter bedding? When the worms arrived at my house, the beddings they were in were quite dry, I was intrigued that they all could survive in that state. Yes, my beddings are kinda soaking and when I dig around to see how the worms are doing (don't do this very often) the bottom gives off a putrid anaerobic smell. I thought the worm would dig around and thus allow the oxygen in thereby preventing an anaerobic condition. I was afraid the worms would dry out. Guess too much love isn't good either.

Also, it is true that if the buried food is left alone that they would eventually go moist from all the microbial activity and the moisture that comes from the surrounding bedding? Thanks

hi .i can tell you right off the bat that you should not put lime into your bin because that is what is causing the bloating and yellow puss in your worms. they react very badly to direct contact with lime. . try disolving small amounts of lime in water and then use that water to water your bin .

gardenalive - you don't want dry bedding, but you don't want it so wet that it's sopping at the bottom and going anaerobic - you also don't want to bury large quantities of food waste in one mass, as it will liquify from the lack of air - food wastes are all quite high in water content - you may need to work over the bin more to prevent that increase in wetness and lack of air, the worms can't keep up w/ it they just head for the top

I think the best basic bedding is shredded newspaper, but as you add food waste, add a bit of something coarser like coarse sawdust to maintain a structure, and try 'pocket feeding', as in one corner today, the next corner tomorrow, and so on - if you're adding more than the worms can use then you run the risk of getting bacterial composting going which can raise the temp too much

Bill

farm type lime will kill all worms that it touches. It is as bad as acid but in the other ph direction. You should use calcium carbonate if anything. The bed should have drainage holes to let the moisture drain off. fluff the bed up with a pitchfork or something to help dry it some. Try to put some good bedding in one side and see if the worms leave the bad bedding and go to the new. If they do try to get the bad bedding out.