Along for the ride, or causing harm? Tiny mites hold on tight as this beetle scuttles about
This is a topic I have been meaning to write about for quite some time – what stinks is that I definitely had more photos to include but now can’t seem to find them at all.
One of the things that kinda held me back from writing about this sooner was my concern that many people might start to worry about ALL the mites that appear in their bins. I’ve tried to emphasize the fact that there are countless different species, and literally only one or two even known to be at all parasitic to worms, but I suspect that photos like these ones I’ve included might still strike fear into the hearts of a lot of worm bin caretakers. That being said, I think just the appearance of the beetle larva picture below might be enough to do that!! (wouldn’t want to encounter a human-sized one of those in a dark alley!)
Over the past couple of years I have encountered similar situations as the ones pictured above on a number of occasions (and as mentioned above I even have some other photos – hopefully I can track them down). What I have noticed is that the ‘host’ (assuming this is indeed a case of parasitism) is always an arthropod (a member of the large group of organisms that includes, insects, spiders and crustaceans, among others). Apart from various beetles (and beetle larvae), I have also found these mites on the back of woodlice (aka ’sow bugs’ or ‘pill bugs’) – a type of terrestrial crustacean.
I have yet to see anything similar to this going on with the worms. Back when I was fairly new to vermicomposting, I certainly had my fair share of experiences with white mites coating my unhealthy or dead worms, but as I’ve written multiple times before, that is not parasitism or predation – those mites are scavengers and are simply taking advantage of a readily available (and nutritious) food source.
Anyway, I’d be interested to hear from others about this. Has anyone observed mites on the backs of various other critters in your worm bins?
BTW – if I ever did see mites that looked similar to those in these pics on the back of my worms I likely WOULD be a tad concerned. There are frequent reports of a reddish/brown parasitic mite that can invade worm beds and attack the worms. I don’t want people to get paranoid about this though. As is shown in the video (put together by Christy Ruffner) I recently posted on the blog, when there is a massive mite population explosion in your worm bin it can certainly look as though the mites are attacking the worms (since they are everywhere!), but it’s important not to jump to conclusions too quickly. If you set out melon pieces (as outlined in the video) and find them coated with the mites, you almost certainly have the regular brown worm bin mites.
In all honesty, I am still a wee bit skeptical that the parasitic ‘red mite’ issue prevalent as some have suggested. Seeing the concentrations of mites in Christy’s video (still gives me the shudders – haha) I can certainly see how some people would end up convinced that these mites are the ‘bad’ ones. Based on the background research I’ve done, my understanding is that the mites that are parasitic on earthworms are reportedly pretty rare.
That being said, I’m certainly still keeping an open mind about this! If anyone has some convincing shots with parasitic red mites on worms, DO let me know! I certainly won’t be shy about ‘eating crow’ on this one!
In the most recent issue of the newsletter I wrote about my success with rounding up a bunch of fall leaves last week (most of them – more than twenty bags worth – came from one neighbor). It was really cool, and also provided me with a valuable lesson in the importance of ’stepping outside your comfort zone’! Next fall I’m definitely going to make more of an effort to let people know what I’m doing, thus (hopefully) helping me to collect even more of these sorts of materials from my nearby neighbors!
With bags and bags of great worm composting materials in hand, I decided that it was finally time to get my outdoor beds ready for winter – originally it was planned to be a ‘winter slumber’, but after giving it more thought I ended up deciding it was time to try out a new winter worm composting system this year (my third in as many years). There is no doubt that last year’s winter worm bed was HUGELY successful, and I know I will be making another one just like it at some point down the road, but the major issue with that system is the fact that it is sitting in my dad’s backyard – not mine!
The time involved in hauling materials over there, and just generally driving back and forth really doesn’t make too much sense to me anymore – I have really big plans for the next few months and a lot of work ahead of me (much of it on my computer – wink wink), so I need to be much more of a ‘home sticker’ this winter. Of course, I still want to have my yearly Winter Composting “Extravaganza” though! I can’t let my loyal readers down!
Apart from that, its just WAY too much fun to go out in the middle of a blizzard (while my neighbors look on in disbelief) and feed my worms!
I am really excited that this year I am going to have the opportunity to try something completely new – and as the title of the post implies, it’s going to be a ‘winter windrow’ this time around! Earlier this week my dad and I basically winterized ALL my outdoor beds (those that haven’t already been emptied out – well apart from my big wooden worm bin, which will be emptied very soon) – we put some extra focus on one particular stretch of bed, which is going to be my designated winter bed. Obviously, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to try and keep EVERYTHING out there active. I’ll just end up spreading my resources too thin (literally) and it will be a lot more difficult to maintain.
I selected a stretch of trench bed perhaps 20 feet in length (will do some actual measurements before too long – I might be WAY off here!), and we added a lot more material in this area – although you wouldn’t know it by looking at the pics. The entire garbage can of pumpkin waste (basically liquified by this point) was mixed with a considerable amount of mulched grass clippings/leaves from my own property and added, along with some aged horse manure, some miscellaneous yard waste, lots of fall leaves, some material (with lots of worms) from other stretches of the bed (those not part of the fully protected system) – and of course lots of straw.
The other stretches of trench beds received mainly fall leaves and straw – which should be just fine for keeping everything alive and kicking over the winter.
Similarly, the sandbox worm bed was mounded up with organic matter (mostly fall leaves and straw) as well. You may recall that I added a big tarp (that had been folded multiple times) as an added layer of protection to this bed last year. Well, that tarp is going to be one of two sitting on top of the winter windrow this year, so the sandbox worms will simply have to make do with what they’ve got!
Have no fear though – with all the material that’s on there now, plus the snow that’s going to pile up on top, the worms will be snug as bugs in rugs down below!
This is basically “phase I” of the winter windrow set-up. While the tarp-protected stretch is certainly in good shape to keep the worms safe for the winter, there is no way I will be able to keep it really active the way it is. I definitely need a LOT more material. That’s where my system from last year will come in handy – all those nicely-rotten straw bales will be an excellent food material, and a great way to provide the windrow with a LOT of extra volume as well. Both tarps being used have plenty of room for expansion as well, so it should be no problem continuing to keep everything covered as well.
I will be making a video about this bed, showing exactly how it was set up etc – but will wait until I have added the material from the other bed.
I have adopted an interesting new food scrap storage approach for my windrow as well. Will write about that in another upcoming post!
Everything looking pretty well processed in original ‘50 Cocoon Challenge’ Bin
We are getting pretty close to the 6 month mark of the original ‘50 Cocoon Challenge’ (oh how time flies) so I thought it was as good a time as any to start wrapping things up – well at least as far as ‘phase I’ of the challenges goes. As mentioned in other posts, there are at least a couple of other 50 cocoon systems I want to test out (namely cardboard-only and straw-only).
All in all, it was a really interesting experiment – especially early on. As it turns out, and as per usual, I did very little to maintain the system over time so I definitely have mixed feelings over the significance (if any) of the current population status. My original plan had been to do a full tally of all the worms and cocoons in the system, but in thinking about it some more I realized that this probably wouldn’t be a good use of my time (and believe me, if I thought the results would be valuable I’d be all over that). You see, the system in no way shape or form represents anything close to ‘typical’ (ie the average home worm bin) – like I said, the early findings were very interesting, and in my humble opinion helped to shed some more light on the potential for Red Worms to hatch and grow quite rapidly (as you may recall, within 6 weeks I was finding fully developed adults in the bin). Obviously we can’t make any grand sweeping generalizations here, but clearly it IS possible for these worms to grow to adulthood in a matter of weeks.
If I had continued to feed the bin on a regular basis, I can only imagine how many more worms there would be – and believe me, there are a LOT. There are also many many cocoons in the mix as well. As you can see, one of the other interesting finds in the bin was a VERY determined avocado plant!
On the off chance that I might want to do something further with this material/worms (apart from transferring everything to a new system that is), I decided to dump the contents of the bin out into one of my open tray systems. The material is very wet and gooey so even if I DID want to do some sort of population assessment, I would at least need to let everything dry out quite a bit.
So we shall see – perhaps if I am feeling extra motivated I will start carefully removing material (separating out any cocoons and worms I find) and see if I can effectively and quickly concentrate the remaining worms. If nothing else, it would at least be kind of interesting to see what sort of a ‘gob’ we’ll be left with.
One other semi-related tidbit to throw your way. I also have plans to start-up a second ‘Four Worm Reproduction Experiment‘ which should be a lot of fun! This time I will be using a fairly typical system (although as you shall see, it is a bin I haven’t used before or even made mention of), rather than the stacking flow-through bin that kept drying out on me. I think it will be really interesting to see the difference! (and yes THIS time there will definitely be ongoing maintenance involved – no more slacking!!).
Our old refrigerator, we had the freon removed and stripped it of all parts
Background – This outdoor worm bin is located at ~7800’ in the foothills west of the Denver/Boulder area of Colorado (40 degrees latitude).
This experiment began in August 2009. We took our old refrigerator to a recycler and had the Freon removed and then stripped of all the mechanical parts so that we were left with a great insulated box. I did have to construct a new lid because the original doors got lost at the recyclers. I drilled several holes in the bottom for drainage. I also had to build a flat spot for the bin as is the case with all yard projects when you live on a slope. The original bedding consisted of old compost, straw, sawdust, shredded cardboard and some kitchen/garden scraps for a depth of about 4 inches. When leaves became available, I added a 4-5 inch layer as a food source and insulation.
I had to build a new lid because the door got lost at the recyclers
Once I had the bedding in place for about a week, I went to volunteer for our local worm man, John Anderson (http://www.cowormman.com) for a morning in exchange for a wealth of information as well as a five gallon bucket of worms and bedding. I can’t tell you exactly how many worms were in there, I didn’t count them. After I checked the bedding to make sure the temperature was staying pretty constant I dumped in the worms and let them settle into their new home. There is a carpet cover on top of the bedding to help maintain moisture and darkness.
After the initial break-in phase my goal was to increase the volume of the bedding before the weather cooled off for more thermal mass. So I dug into one end and added more bedding (similar to the original mix). So the total height was about 6-8”. Note on bedding: I keep an ongoing pile of cardboard egg cartons, shredded newspaper, other torn cardboard and a trashcan of leaves to add when I feed.
This is 2 inch insulation cut to fit the box
I also took some 2 inch rigid foam that I had and made an insert for the top of the bin. There are some gaps so it is not airtight. This piece of foam seems critical to keeping the inside of this bin warmer and moister. I have added some old straw bales on the non-south sides of the bin for added protection, especially on the west end to block our prevailing westerly winds.
Old carpet covering the worm bed
The temp has cooled off to about 65-70. My goal is to keep it in this range. On sunny days that I am around and can monitor, I open the lid and put a translucent cover on the bin to get some solar gain to heat the bin. You do have to watch this as it is amazing how warm it can get in there. But I am hoping this will help me with heating during the winter as we do usually get some sunny spurts of weather here for most of the winter. We have already had a few significant snowfalls (a couple of 1 footers and 1 – 3 footer) and cold spells (extended cloudy weather and temps in the teens) and so far so good. I realize this is the beginning of the winter season and have the colder weather to go yet.
Trying to warm these wigglers up a bit, solar power!
Lots of worm castings just below leaf layer
I have harvested about 4 pounds of worms out of the bin to start 2 indoor bins (the Rubbermaid type). One I gave to my neighbor and the other is my insurance of a worm supply in case of an outside disaster.
I have worms of all ages and stages going in the outdoor bin. There are lots of cocoons and babies so all seems good. The plan is to harvest the castings in March (assuming a stretch of decent weather) and put the worms back in with new bedding. If all goes well there should be extra worms by then to try some other projects. I have also started a log for temperature data and notes.
Silly lesson learned number 1 – Worms need air – As the weather started to cool I thought I should try to tighten up the bin’s air leakage some. I added a seal around the edge of the top with a few small gaps. The next morning I went out and the worms were staging a mass exodus up the walls seeking air, oops. I removed the seal from the two short ends so more air can circulate and all seems well.
Silly lesson learned number 2 – Composting creates heat – I added some food scraps (which I keep in a five gallon bucket to start decomposing before adding) and covered with about 4 inches of leaves. There was enough composting action going on to heat up the area to about 90 and some worms were again staging a revolt and trying to leave. So I had to pull the leaves back to let it cool off a bit. I now make sure I add food to only half the bin at a time and monitor the temp for a few days. I am trying to use this to my advantage now to create wanted heat.
Some More Pictures
Happy worms, they love these rotting leaves
A 3-4 in. layer of leaves for more insulation and bedding/food, east end
Kitchen meat thermometer, I fed this end over a week ago, it is about 4 degrees higher than west end
West end
West end, 78 degrees
Simple thermometer with outdoor probe near bottom of the bin, reads 66, air temp 54
Some extra insulation
Bentley here – I just want to take the opportunity to send a BIG thank you to Tina for putting together this article and letting me post her great photos. Being the winter worm composting nut that I am, I was definitely keen to learn more when she first told me about the refrigerator worm bin, and am so pleased to include this among our great guest posts here on the blog. Speaking of which, if YOU have something vermicomposting-related that you would like to share, don’t hesitate to drop me a line!
I recently came across this video over on YouTube and was VERY impressed – the creator, Christy Ruffner (from ‘Worm Bin Composting‘) summarized very effectively a piece of advice I have actually been giving people as of late, relating to the often asked question “How do I get rid of worm bin mites?”. I know I tend to be ‘Mr Mellow’ about this stuff – but I have come to realize that there are indeed situations where some sort of mite intervention needs to take place in order to optimize conditions once again for vermicomposting.
Apart from the awesome info and effective visuals (now THATS what I call a mite infestation – YIKES!), I appreciated the fact that Christy took the time to inform people that the “spider mites” are not the same ones considered to be plant pests (as some people mistakenly assume), and moreover that they won’t really do all that well even if they do start crawling out of your bin!
One other thing to mention – while melons/cantaloupes are almost certainly the most effective materials for attracting mites, really any of the cucumber family (cucumbers, squash, pumpkins etc) should work quite well. Oh – and definitely make sure you don’t leave the chunks in there for too long. If you happen to forget about them, you may end up with the ‘mother of ALL mite infestations’! haha
By the way – I will definitely add a link to this post to the “Worm Bin Mites” section of the “Hot Topics” page for future reference. I have little doubt that this video is going to help a lot of stressed-out vermicomposters!
Thanks to Christy for putting it together (and be sure to drop by her site – linked above – to say hello!)
Earlier in the month I wrote a post called “Interesting Gift Ideas for Worm Fanatics” that talked about some cool worm-related products created by two talented Dutch artists (although as mentioned, one of them lives in Norway now).
Well, I recently received an email from one of our readers, Jillian, pointing me in the direction of some interesting wormy gift ideas from US-based artists.
I thought I would post this follow-up just in case people are trying to find worm-related gifts for those hard-to-shop-for creative vermicomposting types!
Joking aside, these are definitely pretty cool! (Thanks again, Jillian)
Hi Everyone,
I just thought I would share some recent photos!
Picture from a few months ago. I think their air got cut off and it was time to leave and I don’t think they had any food left. What the OSCR bin looks like today. This is Marvin (Letty says he is the leader) The small one is a store bought green onion. The bigger one is from Letty’s garden, grown with Vermicompost. Some lady bugs stopped by for a snack! (not sure what those lines are)
‘Mark from Kansas’ is an avid vermicomposter from…well…Kansas, and contributing author here at Red Worm Composting. When he is not tending to his OSCR worm bin, Mark also enjoys spending time with his wife Letty (who also doubles as his trusty vermicomposting assistant) and picking petunias (ok, Bentley just made that last bit up).
Here is the final installment in Mark’s OSCR video series. This one is REALLY interesting so be sure to check it out. Mark shows the upper zone of his worm composting bed and explains how he feeds and waters the system. Speaking of which, I LOVE the water sprayer – that is an awesome idea. I think I’m going to get me one of those. (obviously it goes without saying that you should buy one of these NOT reuse one used for spraying other stuff!)
This is another long one (19:57), but I think a lot of people will enjoy the content.
You’ll likely notice that I’ve used a slightly different video player this time around – this one includes links to the other two videos (which show up once the video ends) – so if you happened to miss those ones you can easily check them out as well.
You will ALSO likely have noticed that I added a box in the sidebar to show Mark’s waste tally. I think it will be a lot of fun for us all to follow along as Mark continues his journey towards 2000 lb (and beyond). I’m amazed that he’s already added ~250 lb (as of the time of this writing)! Pretty cool.
Thanks again to Mark for putting together this video series! I am certainly looking forward to all his future OSCR (and other) updates!
A long (but really interesting) email question from Michael:
Hey there, I started my own worm garden for an experiment
back in march of this year … wanted to see if i could do it and see
if it was viable so i could sell the extra worms { have a few paylakes
waiting on me to produce enough to sell to them} i started with a
dozen worms just to try .. they are in a 2 ft by 2 ft box .. give or
take a few inches and its about 8 inches deep .. they have reproduced
but it doesnt seem alot .. probably up to 20 or 30 worms now .. wish
there were more but its only been 7 months.. anyway .. im interested
in knowing if they will survive the winter here in ohio .. i live in
the cincinnati area. so weather is iffy … either rainy and 30ish or
sunny and teens to twenties in winter..gets really cold in late jan.
and feb 0-10 ish is this box big enough for them or do i need to get
a bigger box .. they are outdoors and i dont want them to die .. have
quite a few worm eggs in there now too..and would it help getting a
pound or two more worms .. i have access to as large of boxes that i
need .. just not sure what to but in a large box for bedding .. i have
5 acres off wooded land and plenty of grass,twigs,and leaves ..if they
can eat that? plenty of left over food scraps … .. but when it gets
could will this stuff freeze up or will decomposition keep it warm
enough for the worms, i can also get hay or straw if this would help
and im looking at bringing home a 4 ft tall three foot wide box with
lid from work .. how many worms should i put in something this large
to get them to reproduce ..and is now a good time to buy so the have
time to reproduce some before spring? want to try and have some for
sale by march{ will have this experiment goin on for 1 year lol …
would love to sell something for an anniversary present.{ i am using
redworms} thank you very much ..
Michael
My Audio Response
My Written Response
Hi Michael,
Thanks for writing in – lots of interesting tidbits there!
Based on the fact that you bought “a dozen” worms, I get the feeling you purchased them from a bait shop, and suspect you may have Canadian Nightcrawlers (Lumbricus terrestris) – a large soil worm commonly used for fishing. If your system was indoors and you ended up with 20-30 worms I might think differently (since Canadians won’t breed readily in smaller indoor beds – the worms, that is! haha), but the fact that the system IS outside and likely in contact with the soil (you’ve referred to it as a ‘garden’), so that would seem plausible.
Just so you know, even the slowest of composting worms would produce a MUCH larger population than that in 7 months! Quite some time ago I started up an experiment called “Four Worm Reproduction Experiment” that basically involved starting a worm bin with 4 Red Worms and seeing how quickly they reproduced. I totally neglected the system, yet after 5 months or so (when I did a tally of the worms) there had been a 25-fold increase in numbers! Imagine if I had actually taken good care of them?
Bottom-line, the good news is that you definitely will be able to raise worms a LOT more quickly than that – but you really do need to get a hold of one of the composting species (Red Worms or European Nightcrawlers are both a good choice for cooler climates, but the Reds will most likely breed more quickly for you). If you are planning to raise these worms for sale as fishing bait, you may want to go with Euros since they are larger (although, as I have written previously, Red Worms can be a great fishing worm as well).
Moving on to the topic of winter worm composting…
You live in Cincinnati, so perhaps you already know that Red Wigglers are “the Cadillac of Worms”! (rather obscure joke – sorry! That was a radio jingle on the show “WKRP in Cincinnati”).
Seriously though, you are certainly well south of me (in Southern Ontario, Canada) so your winter won’t be as severe – and yes, you certainly can keep worms alive over the winter. Keeping a totally active worm composting system is a different matter altogether, although that could certainly be done as well (been there, done that – bought the T-shirt! haha).
Not sure if I will be too late in telling you this, but one of the best ways to protect your worm bed will be be piling up a lot of fall leaves over it – sounds like you are in a prime location to collect them (hopefully you haven’t bagged them all up and sent them away). You mentioned being able to get straw/hay as well – fantastic! These are excellent insulation/food materials. The hay in particular would serve a double function of food and insulation since it is richer in nitrogen – it will be especially important in the spring as the bed warms up and the worms start to get active again.
If you want to insulate a bed with elevated sides (such as the bin with 4 ft walls you mention), I would highly recommend stacking straw bales all around the outside. If you have a bed that is low-lying, this won’t really be necessary – just heap everything up over top.
Using some sort of a tarp over top will provide a great final layer of insulation (especially if it is a huge tarp that can be folded multiple times) and will act as an important wind break. If you also get lots of snow, piling it over top of the tarp will provide you with one final layer of insulation.
I suspect that you would be ok setting up the system now, but do so ASAP and prepare the bed before adding the worms. Again, we are talking about composting worms here, so you will want to set this up like a giant vermicomposting system (bedding mixed with food). If you have access to any aged manure, this would work really well mixed with shredded cardboard and leaves/straw, along with the food waste you mentioned. Fill your bed with this then let it sit for a week or two before adding the worms. Make sure you get yourself some sort of a compost thermometer as well – you definitely don’t want to end up cooking your worms! Speaking of which, to answer your question – yes, microbial heating can be enough to keep the worms warm BUT you will need a “critical mass” and really good insulation if you have any hopes of sustaining the warm conditions.
If you really DO want to create an active winter worm bed, you will probably want a system somewhat larger than the one you mentioned, and again, using bales of straw to create walls can work really well. Be sure to check out my Winter Worm Composting posts on the ‘Hot Topics‘ page. The posts about my big winter worm bed should help to provide you with some ideas.
Here is ‘Part II’ of Mark’s OSCR video series, which features a short tour of Mark’s harvesting chamber.
It is only 3:32, but it’s really interesting to see the system from below. I appreciated the fact that Mark didn’t mind getting crawling around and getting dirty for our benefit!
Tomorrow, as mentioned, Mark is going to take us on a tour of the upper zone of his OSCR bin, and show us how he feeds the system.
282 lb of Food Waste, and Counting!