Hopefully they found places far enough away from the heat so they're probably fine. (no experience here, just trying to be optimistic !)
I wouldn't have thought raw rice would hydrate very well, let alone cook in a bin. I would have expected it to just sit. I hope for the best for you and your lads.

How are your lads? I have never added rice to my bin, so I have no idea what happened. I agree with growsveges. I would think that rice would hydrate and expand (no throwing rice at weddings!!), but that is it. I am not sure what worms think of carbs, but I imagine it should be okay.

As an alternate theory, how many "greens" did you feed them? I know that if too much grass is added, the compost (vermi or otherwise) will heat up quite a bit. Thus, I have always been cautioned against adding grass to my worm-bin. If you added too many "greens" this may contribute.

I am interested about the rice and carbs though. Anyone out there have worms built on rice?

Hi sf1.
Thanks for asking how my worms are. Whenever I mention "greens" I'm talking about produce that has been chopped...lettuces, fennel, broccoli, etc. I guess I had better clarify. I never add grass clippings to my indoor bin.

I lost about 3/4 of my heard though. My surviving worms are much better...all of the food, except some of the raw rice has disappeared. I did give them some cantaloupe and some finely chopped potato since the heat. They are much livelier and the bin of course was cooled down that fateful day.

I don't mind giving them more rice, but cooked only. Unless all starches should be steered away from...

Sherry

CARBS.
Bring on the carbs.
The worms are not on a diet.
Grains are superb carbs, but spread them throughout the bin so there will be no heating up during decomposition.

The heating is usually caused by something high in nitrogen decomposing quickly. If you add enough food scraps into a bin at one time, there is likely to be some heating. I am a person that has put large amounts of stuff into my worm bin at one time. The important thing is to make sure that there will still be a cool part of the bin so if/when the food heats up, the worms will have a place to go hang out while they wait for dinner to finish cooking. One method is to dig a trench on one end of the bin and dump food there and cover. Next time feed on the other end. Never feed in the middle since if the trenches touch, there would be no where safe for the worms.

If the rice was whole grain (instead of white rice) the extra protein in combination with the carbs might have made the rice really quick to compost and heat up. If you were to ever feed such a thing again, the important method would be to sprinkle it sparingly through the bin so there wouldn't be any clumps to heat up and steam.

My worms love the crumbles in the bottom of the rice cake bag, and cooked rice, and stale crackers. Never tried uncooked.