Those look like soldier fly larvae. Tis the season for these terrific composting critters. When I was newer to vermicomposting and would see these guys, I would freak out and thought they were maggots (housefly). I was wrong. Go to: happydranch.com and click on the invertebrate page. You will get good info about these. These larvae are composting their "brains" out and will speed up your composting efforts a lot. If you do want to harvest your compost, they will retreat like worms when light is cast on them. The birds love them and some people use them to fish.

I hate these buggers with a passion. I called them "Blankety-blanks" for the longest time, because I didn't know their true name for several years, but I hated them intensely. Now that I know what they are, I still call them "blankety-blanks".

Yeah, they'll compost fiercely, but the presence of them in large amounts in your bins indicates an acid condition developing in your bin, and you don't want that.

Usually this is caused by too much water in the bin, lack of ventilation and/or too much food in the bin at one time. Add some more bedding material to absorb extra water and dilute the OM that's in there. Fluff the bedding material up while you're at it, to expose everything to oxygen, which kills off the anerobic bacteria (bad smell) and encourages aerobic bacteria (good smell), which will also help consume the extra OM.

Add some ventilation/drainage holes (maybe take the lid off the bin for a couple of days) and back off on the amounts of food you are giving the worms for a time.

When you do feed, be sure to add a small amount of corn meal along with it, because corn meal seems to help increase worm population, and right now you need more worms to consume the amount of food you're wanting to give.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Earthworm Farm

Those are indeed Black Soldier Fly larvae.

There is not a thing that you need to do about them. They are working for you in the composting process. Nasty they are but they are still good. Your compost will end up at near neutral pH regardless of whether you BSF larvae or not.

BSF larvae will produce moisture in the pile and may end up making things too wet. You can offset that moisture by adding some dry components.

I had the same reaction the first time I saw them in my bin but then realized that they aren't quite as bad as they seemed.

Good Gardening!

I wish those would take up residence in my worm bin, I know some fish that would love them! All these little pin-head sized white bugs (their name escapes me, but it's in Mary Applehoff's book) that I get are just about useless as food :)

Jim

I recently went to the local lake and scooped up a few minnows for my rain water bucket to prevent mosquito larvae. I must say they are 100% effective in getting rid of the larvae in my case, but I tried giving them some small BSF from my worm bin and unfortunately the minnows ignored them (probably because they are already too large for the small minnow mouths).

I'm sure moderate size fish would love to eat the larvae, and I've noticed that BSF larvae can last multiple days in the water but I've had thoughts of an outdoor (small) aquarium with fish that are big enough to chomp these guys.

It would give me extreme pleasure to add the the soldier fly larvae to someone else's food chain.