Now I'm wondering if I accidentally poisoned my worms. Still the absence of any bodies is strange unless they do disintegrate that quickly. Anyone know?

I added a few mint leaves that I had treated with home insecticidal soap spray (a drop of dawn, olive oil, water). I made sure to wash the mint leaves a few times in clean water. Because I read the mint leaves should be safe for human consumption, I thought a few mint leaves would be okay for the worms, too. (Perhaps not?) I added the mint along with a slice of banana and two small slices of leftover corn cob so it wasn't the only food in the bin. Could the treated mint leaves be behind the disappearance of my worms? The bin smelled fine, the way it should - like moist soil - and the bedding looked fine, damp and moist.

Okay, I finally found some info online. It seems dead worms do decompose very rapidly, so it makes sense that I would not find any signs even after a few days. I think it's highly likely I unwittingly poisoned my worms. Dumb mistake.

So you don't think I poisoned my worms with the treated mint leaves?

It's weird, but whenever I caught a whiff of the slight acrid smell, I would open the bin to check and each time it smelled fine. I actually thought I imagined the smell the last 2-3 days. It wasn't a persistent smell either, just something I would get a whiff of every so often - it was so faint. Each time I left the bin open to air it out for a bit.

I wish I had some cocoons. I checked, but I didn't find any. Unless the cocoons start off very, very small, I didn't see any. I think my worms were at the cusp of developing the clitellum before their untimely demise which makes this frustrating. So close...

I will take your advice and monitor the bin in case there were cocoons that I somehow missed. As for paper, there's already plenty of paper in the bin. As you could probably surmise, I have plenty of paper and paper products available.

whenever I caught a whiff of the slight acrid smell

That acrid smell is the smell of overfeeding. The excess food begins to ferment, and that's probably killed your worms. Worms may not like mint leaves, but at no point do they smell acrid. Just keep the bin going for a while, as if there are still worms there. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean that they're aren't any.

I just spoke a red wriggler expert who confirmed that it was the insecticidal soap treated leaves. He said I wasn't the only one to make that mistake. Dumb decision on my part to feed them the mint leaves. Now I know never feed insecticidal soap treated food, regardless how well and how many times the food was washed.

He also said that overfeeding would be a problem if it created a poor environment for the worms, but that wasn't my case as my bin never got too wet and smelled fine whenever I sniffed it. I think the faint acrid smell I detected was that of the worms dying. Poor worms.

I will definitely monitor the bin in case there are cocoons. Thank you for the suggestion, because I was about to jettison the contents. I'll give it a month and see if any baby red wrigglers emerge.

I don't do a real worm bin, but have plenty in my cold compost bin. I occasionally get requests from my freecycle group for red wigglers. I'm happy to let them come and get a couple shovelfuls of worm filled compost to start a new bin! If you are in a gardening type area, give freecycle a try! We also have a gardening type of the same free exchange in our area. You might look into that. Or even Craigslist (don't know much about that. Nancy

Thanks for the suggestion, nancyjane. I already looked on my local freecycle and craigslist for offers, but no luck. I didn't go as far as submitting a request which I suspect would have gotten a response. Still a great reminder to those who either cannot commit to 1 lb of red wrigglers (like myself) or cannot afford them to check both sites for free red wrigglers.

Luckily, I was going through my potting soil recently - transferring the soil from my terracotta pots to the root pouches - when I found more red wrigglers (just a few). I'm going to give this another try and I will do my best not to poison them again.

Maybe try local stables/barns? I read that they may sometimes be underneath piles of old/aged manure? I looked and looked locally for worms to start my bins and finally my family took pity on me and sent me 2 lbs for my birthday ;)