Small stacking bins - no upward movement

17 years ago

I am hoping that someone here has gone through this one has some advice for me.

Sorry for such a long post I do tend to ramble on.

I currently have my worms in a stack of 5 gallon bins. I divided a 18 gallon bin into the 3 smaller bins when i harvested. Bad back lighter bins. Wish i had found 10 gallon ones now. I have around 2 1/2 pounds of worms in this stack.

I drilled loads of 3/16 holes into the bottom of each bin so the worms could 'move on up' to the next bin at will. But, it isn't happening.

It was a few weeks before i needed to add a bin and they wont move into it.

At first i just sit the next bin on top and added a little bedding and a bit of pre-frozen food into the new bin. Nothing the food, decomposed the juice melted down into the lower bin. No worms in the new bin. Up to this point i was doing weekly feedings without a problem.

After a couple weeks without upward movement i took the new bin off and removed all the recognizable paper off the top of the bin under it and added it all to the new bin along with a light feeding. - another week still no worms in that bin.

At that point i decided that maybe there wasn't enough volume in the bin and i prepared enough damp bedding (egg carton, paper rolls, brown paper bag from a bird feed sack and newspaper to fill the bin 3/4 full). Just like making up a batch of bedding for a new bin, added a hand full of soil. Mixed it with the bedding already in the bin. Along with one coffee filter and a little bit of chopped veggies.

Now its two weeks later - still no worms but all the mites in the bin seems to have 'moved on up'. Ok at this point I hadn't disturbed them other than what i have related. It's been just over a month not a sign of a worm in the new bin.

So i took the layers of the bin apart to see what is happening. The bottom drip bin has some very wet fine compost in it that is just full of baby worms. The lowest bin looks like it needs to be harvested.

So what do you all think. Should i dump out the new bin and start a new batch of bedding or just wait some more. Or just add the baby worm compost mix into the bin that they wont move into? Its only about 4 cups worth. and go ahead and harvest the lowest bin and add the worms to the new bin too?

I am afraid that for some reason they just don't like that new bin and moving them in mass would be a big mistake.

I did buy all the bins at the same time so there shouldn't be a difference in them.

Any ideas i a just stumped.

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Comments (4)

j_dubyak
17 years ago
Why not grab a handful of worms from the lower bin and throw them into the upper one? Maybe they can convince some others to join them. The environment should be good for the worms since the mites moved in and have started decomposing.

I can't speak from much experience because I just added my second tier 10-gallon bin a couple of months ago, but when I did I happened to get some extra worms from a friend so I just dumped them into the new bin. Everything since has gone swimmingly, but of course I have no idea if things would have gone just as well without manually introducing worms to the new tier. They are definitely migrating up now.

It's worth a try anyway, since at least you would know that the food in the top bin is getting some work done on it and not just sitting there rotting.
fosteem1
Original Author
17 years ago
It looks like it worked.

There seems to be more worms in there than the ones i moved. Could be that there just wasn't the right microbes going until I put a hand full into the bin.

Or they just don't like to climb stairs.
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hamiltongardener
17 years ago
I find my worms move down, not up. Does anyone else find that?
fosteem1
Original Author
17 years ago
Oh yes they go down.

It could be because the liquid from all the good food is running down to the bottom. That is what they eat so they follow it.

I have just as many worms in the bottom bin as i do in upper ones. I'm told that if i fed less at a time, fed on the dry side adding stuff to soak up all the liquid and waited for it all to disappear before feeding again a larger group would stay at the top. But there would still be worms at every level.

I could be raising my worms all wrong. Or the worms just forgot to read the instructions. I choose to blame the worms.