There's a couple things to increase worm population. One, is always giving them more room than they need. That encourages population.

The next, as the worms populations increase and they eat more of the bedding their environment gets worse. If your goal is population it requires more frequently changing of the bedding to keep them in a happy environment, of which your vermicompost won't have as much vericompost.

I thought, what a great way to heat the water or heat my house, what about trying to do it with compost. Win-Win situation, free heat, and free compost for spring. I came across this article http://www.motherearthnews.com/Homesteading_and_Self_Reliance/1980_September_October/Update_II__Mother_s_Compost_Heater and the results weren't good. Whether it applies to keeping a worm bin alive in winter or not, I'm not certain but considering they had trouble keeping a 5 ton compost pile warm in winter I have to say the applicability for using home composting is probably even harder.

I was thinking about making a compost thing where I can put a small 5 gallon hot-water pre-heater inside. As the compost warms, it preheats the water in that tank before it goes into my tankless boiler. Glad to see I'm not the only one trying to figure out uses for the heat generated from compost.

Ya, density seems to be important- at least according to the studies quoted at the link below. Below about 1/2# per square foot and it seems they don't find eachother as well as needed for best reproductive rates. Above 1#/square foot and their reproduction slows down as response to food and other competition.

The link also stresses the differences between breeding worms and churning out vermicompost. Densities for vermicomposting can be a fair bit higher than those I stated above.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vermiculture for farmers

in my large outdoor bin, I add layers of fresh compost [just past hot stage] to keep the worms moving up - works ok even in winter, as long as there's a good layer of some insulating material on top, but I'm looking for finished castings, not worried about population increase, but I'd say they "thrive", always lotsa population in the spring

don't forget that worms and heat are not compatible - in a hot compost the worms go away from the heat, which is where the food would be - my experience is they'll go down more than out, prolly cuz they get more nutrients from the natural leaching

you're talking 2 different scenes, multiplying the worms to get a large population, and useing worms to process large amounts of material - the population increase should work the way you're going, but hot composting will process the material faster and more reliably ..... and then it can be used for raising worms

as far as generating useful heat from composting, the heat needs to be generated right where it's used [like in a greenhouse floor, or right next to it, or in the "hotbed" situation], and compost must be continually worked in order to stay hot - winter piles are harder to maintain at high temps, mostly due to the higher ambient humidity w/ lower ambient temps, which causes poor moisture cycling - my experience and experimenting say it's not a practical or reliable heat source

keep us posted on your progress :)

Bill

Great site.

I think the 0.5 lbs - 1.0 lbs per square foot applies mostly to their farming application. They seemed to mix the food/compost/manure, then add worms, and months later collected. In a home system it's not difficult for the worms to find each other, they huddle by the masses around the food you've burried from previous weeks. If you bury the food in a different spot each time, they congregate from location to location. I can see their point, if food is everywhere equally they won't congregate in one location and you need to make up for that with additional quantities.

In my bins that's what seems to happen. My worms LOVE pumpkin, I think every single worm in my bin goes nuts when I put a piece in there. They turn into a huge slimy orgy pile frolicking in it getting all tangled in each other. If worms can get excited about anything, a piece of pumpkin is it. I think that's what stimulates breeding most in my bins.

piedmont,
do you cook that pumpkin first or just let it start to decay some and get all mushy for them?

I let it decay some and get all mushy. If a jackolantern is collapsing on itself, it's prime for the worms. My worms also like watermelon. Maybe they like the cucurbits (canteloupe, honeydew, squash, pumpkin, watermelon, and cucumbers) but as I hate most mine only get watermelon or pumpkin. But, there's no question they like the pumpkin best.

Quick update- I got my worms, set up a small bin. I was dissapointed in the number of worms that I received. A few had escaped in transit (got them on a hot day) or died, but I think that I just plain ordered them from someone without a lot of experience. There was a mix of worm-types- including what appeared to be tigers.

My 2 issues thus far have been moisture and fruit flies. I am using mostly hay as bedding, and have added shredded cardboard because the water capacity of hay seems pretty poor. Water was concentrated at the bottom of the bin for a while- the worms stayed there and probably just sucked at leachate. I mixed up the contents of the bin (hay is a bit more broken down now) and the moisture seems better distributed- as are the worms. They seem to be eating well now. These will be the seed population for a larger outdoor bin to be constructed in maybe September.

I ordered 2# more from a different source. This source claims all breeders (not bed run). I'll use those to start an indoor bin for the winter etc.

Thanks for the advice here in this thread and others. It's helped out greatly!