Thing is, worms don't really move if there's food where they are even if theres new food elsewhere. So it can take a LONG time for all the worms to move to where you want them. I moved away from bins mainly because of the harvesting reason. BTW everyone has their favorites but I love the Worm Inn. Very breathable, no stacks to move, and the stuff out the bottom is nice and consistant. No wet VC. But to your harvesting problem, you could try this method. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheCompostGuy#p/u/25/BhyTzhPtJcg Add a small layer of VC you want done every couple of days until is all done. One advantage is it's based on running with the new system so you can spead it out for as long as you want.

You're absolutely correct, Anita. I never put any type of food source near the nestboxes for that very reason. No point in giving Mr. and Mrs. Blue the problem of having to defend their nesting territory from hungry birds. House sparrows here eat mealworms as well, so I've had to be crafty about feeding the blues--we have multiple mealworm feeders but only the blues and the Carolina wrens know about the one out front! You know, when I took over one of the bluebird trails I currently monitor, several of the nestboxes had metal catfood cans nailed to the top--I'm sure the previous monitor used these to put mealworms in. Taking the cans off the nestbox rooves was my first renovation--definitely not a good idea because other birds also like mealworms--that was a fight waiting to happen. Kathy

Too bad about moving to an area without Bluebirds! We moved from an area with Chikadees and Nuthatches to Bluebirds without my Chikies! I loved those little guys! How did you start your mealworm farm? We have had two sucessful Bluebird fledging this summer out of three nests. The mealworms are rare in our Pet supply stores and expensive! I would love to know how to raise my own!

Nappy... your guess of about 600 (euro per pound) is probably close however that is not too many for a 13 gal container. I started with two 27 gallon bins, about 2/3 filled and put about 3000 (red wigglers/euros mixed) in one bin and 5000 in the other. That was no where near high density. In the first four months the numbers way more than quadrupled without issues and last month when I added two more bins and split the populations the density was WAY more than what I'd started with in the original bins but know this, I did supply prodigious amounts of food continuously, and a generous part of it were powdered grains and other high protein items in addition to fruit and vegetable pulp. Before I ever introduced any worms into the original bins, I'd had the bins prepared already with the bedding of coir/peat and added soil/leaf compost and buried 10 pounds of juiced pulp under the bedding for about 3 weeks to get the microbe population started and so when the worms arrived in the mail I just dumped them into the bins and they had an immediately available food source from day one... and plenty of it. Within 2 days I found many of them burrowing through the middle of that pulp pile so I assume they were eating... it soon turned into a huge mass before the week was up. Your worms may be wandering out of the bin due to lack of a sufficiently ready food source. Yes, try to get some leaf litter in there or open a can of pure pumpkin or creamed corn or cooked spinach (packed without salt) and put it under the bedding and see what happens over the next few days.... you'll need to wait until a mass of worms begin mobbing it before turning the light off... in any case continue to keep the lid off the bin. Somehow I missed it that you've only had this worm bin set up for 2 days! (which should make it 5 days by now)... Worm bins are an ecosystem that will take time to develop so be patient and give it a week for the worms to settle in. Remember their whole environment was just radically changed and so it will take a few days for them to adjust.... just adjusting to the pH of the bin could take a few days...