I have had portions of my bin heat up after adding a large amount of fruit. My bin is very large though and the worms can move off to a cooler part of the bin when this happens. It is a good idea to always have a "safe area" of the bin that never gets food scraps so that it won't tend to heat up and that way there is always somewhere they can go instead of escaping. Once the break down is well underway, the worms will venture back and eat. Hopefully you haven't lost too many to escape attempts before then.

It's probably the "lot of pear peels and vegetable scraps" making it heat up. Try removing it.

This same happend to me this morning!
I have had bin for 4 weeks and even yesterday I was telling my friend how great the worm has been doing :just "earthy" almost no smell,few fruit flies. And today at 6.30 am before going to work LOTS of worms outside the bin.It had to be hundred or more!!!
I had to clean it up before my daughter would see it. I have no clue what had made them to crawl out. I opened the bin,added some fresh paper,and hope it will never happen again. The food I have been putting is almost the same: some fruit, some vegetable scraps. I has been hot last weeks and could it be temp.related escape???

kasia

The food heats up while it is breaking down. It is a good idea to feed in one spot leaving other, cooler areas to where the worms can escape. If you feed the whole area then they will try to escape and end up outside the bin as you have seen. Remove some of the heated food and let things cool down. Try adding less food with each feeding.

Marshall

I actually visited a worm farm where I gotmy worms and bins. They said if it gets too hot to take a bottle of FROZEN WATER and wrap in a newspaper and place in the bin.If the worms need to cool off they can come closer to it.I keep mine in the garage as it is too hot in Florida in my opinion.Also do you take a tool and sort of aerate it on occasion?

It is a good idea to fluff up the bedding on occasion. I've usually just done it with my hands, if this is too gross for you perhaps wear rubber gloves. The bottom layers of most bedding can become quite compacted and it is a good idea to see how the lower areas of your bin are fairing on moisture, worm population etc.

We do the frozen water bottles for our worms as we are in hot FL too. We haven't even bee bothering to wrap them in paper or anything. We just bury them in the middle of the bin so when things are too hot they can cool off. This might not be strictly necessary as the moist bin is much cooler than the air and the worms did survive us going on vacation so we were not here to bring them ice every other day. However, the cooler temperatures will probably make conditions much better for breeding.

With my small bin when it gets too hot for them during the summer, I give them the melon peel scraps or watermelon scrap frozen.