Hi Shawn; The worms will increas(double in numbers is ideal)in 3 months. Likely it will be slower in the beginning and will accelerate as time passes. I have some 10 gal , 18 gal and one 35 gal totes and the 10 gal can support 3-4 # the 18 gal 4.5-6# and when I harvested worms from the 35 gal I removed about 3# and that only made a dent in the population probibly 10-12# in the bin. I have found that when the biomass stabilizes is the best time to harvest by division of worms and bin material. It will get you buying more bins and keeping more worms.

Can a worm bin become overcrowded. What would happen if you did not remove some of the worms.

It's not so much about removing worms as about adding food and bedding. If you keep adding stuff and the number of worms keeps increasing, you will just end up with a large amount of vermicompost.
If you stop adding food and bedding to a bin, whether or not you remove any worms, the worms which are there will ingest all of the nutrients and eventually they will all die.
What is left is good compost. You would empty the bin and start over. It would be possible to run your worm operation that way, but it doesn't make sense to me.
mbetts

Thank you for your responses. I plan to keep adding bedding and kitchen scraps. I guess I was just wondering at what point should I remove some of the worms so the bin does not become over crowded. I started with a 1/2 pound 2 months ago so I figure in a year I will have to harvest the compost and divide the worms.

Your worm bin will go slowly at first, but once the worms are settled and happy ( for me this took about five months) they will begin repoducing more and more as long as you have plenty of food to go around. But if you do not increase the food the worm population will stablize and will not increase in huge numbers if they are given the same amount of food. So once the worms are eating more and more each week, as you begin to increase the food intake because the worms are increasing then you start getting large anounts of worm growth. But if you don't give them more food they will go into a survival mode and not increase until the increase of an abundance of food and then they will multiply. At leas that is what I have expeirnced here. I had alot of rotten plums and pumkins and zuki squash and since I have added alot more food I have had alot more worms in the past few months, Now I am going to have to get some food srcaps from the grocer or Jamba juice places to help me out this winter.
Just be careful not to over feed since you are starting out. I have had these bins for 1 1/2 years now and I have four bins, all loaded with worms.
At one time last year one flooded with rain water and I romved the worms and brought it inside and the eggs hatched and by late spring it was full of adult worms again. Trial and error will teach you the most but be patient on the worms doubling in the first six months in a brand new bin. When I harvest I will only take out half the castings and fill the other side with cardbaord paper and stuff and then start feeding them on that side only until they all migrate over and just go back and forth that way. Good luck! Bill C

I have been careful not to overfeed exept for last week. I had extra kitchen scraps so I put 4 or 5 cups of fruits and vegi scraps. I checked the bin today and about half of that food is gone. What happens if you over feed the worm bin.

As a side not I did see about 15 white baby worms which I was excited about.

If you overfeed the worm bin, that's just asking for critter problems. You'll get overrun with mites and springtails. But more importantly this is potential for the whole mess becoming anaerobic and you ending up with a sour bin.

shawn303; baby red worms are pink because of the blood vessels in their bodies. If the white worms you are seeing are 3/8 to 3/4 inch long they are pot worms. A few are ok but a population explosion of them can indicate a problem of things getting acidic and a little too moist.