Shaul

I use a similar system that I developed. I start with a large plastic bowl and fill it with damp shredded cardboard. I then take a plastic flower-pot base (which collects run-off water from the flower pot) and set it on top. In the flower pot base I have drilled many 1/4″ holes. I fill the base with the castings (and worms) to about 1″ high and set it out in the sun. The worms immediately begin to move down through the holes into the damp shredded cardboard below, leaving the castings 95% clean of worms.
What’s left are usually the little guys plus lots of cocoons. I dump this into a large holding bin for further processing and start again.
How much material you can harvest in one day depends only on how many bases you have to work with. At present I have 15.
Sure, drilling out 15 bases was a lot of work, but it only needs to be done once.
At the end, it’s fairly easy to separate the worms out from the wet cardboard in the plastic bowl and the cardboard can then be used as bedding in a new bin.

As for your worms not wanting to go down – that likely means the material they are in now is not far enough along (still plenty to feast on) and/or the new system is not tempting enough (as you suspected). If you look at the photo of the material David was removing worms from, it basically looked like pure vermicompost (all dark soil-like stuff) – worms should be happy to abandon this stuff in favor of a new (yet aged – haha) system.
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JEFF – glad you liked it. This method does obviously take up some room, and potentially require some purchases being made. But fluorescent fixtures really aren’t all that expensive (definitely doesn’t need to be a grow light like the one I have), and any old table will do.
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KIM – I remember you wanting a bit more info about the tub systems I use. Glad this video proved to be the missing link for you. I find that Rubbermaid bins with the dimensions mentioned in David’s tub harvesting method post, sitting without a lid, are just as good as these black bins though – no mucky stuff.

I’m sooo gonna use these new bins! You make it look simple! And the compost looks wonderful!

Thank you again for taking the time to shoot and share.

I knew there must be a faster way to harvest worms/casting from my worm bin, but I was having a tough time seeing how I could speed it up! Thanks for the demo!

I will have to try this method. I have been using David’s method (first time harvesting) and I have not had much movement and its been about 2 weeks. Maybe the holes are too small or the material in the new bin is not appealing.

Thanks Bentley!