Comments on: Stacking Bin Euros – 05-28-13

By: Bentley

Bentley — Fri, 31 May 2013 17:57:14 +0000

KIM – hopefully you’ve had the chance to check out my “European Nightcrawlers – In More Detail” post. In that I explain that quite a few of the assumptions I’ve made about these worms (based on the info that gets widely spread) hasn’t been on target. Most of them are still in the first bin – I’m just noticing more and more of them up in the second tray.
I have little doubt there will be plenty that stick around in the first tray, but I find the same thing with Red Worms anyway. It’s not to difficult to separate them from finished vermicompost by simply positioning the full tray over top of a new tray you want them to move into, and then shining a bright light over top while scraping away the material. Sure – cocoons will still end up in the material, but again this is no different than with Reds. At least they are big enough to be easy to spot.
🙂

By: John W

John W — Fri, 31 May 2013 02:35:42 +0000

@Melody The problem I had with my WF360 was the worms would move up, but then the eggs would keep hatching in the bottom. So I would always have worms in the lower trays. That’s one of my favorite things about the Worm Inn is I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I don’t know why/how the worm eggs hatch and move up much quicker, but it sure makes harvesting much easier

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 30 May 2013 11:18:01 +0000

Melody – With my reds, I always had 3 or 4 trays active. (They are in a Worm Inn, now) I would spread about a gallon of food per week among all of the trays, unless I was going to harvest one or more of the trays the next week. With the Euros, I feed about a cup of food per tray, or even less. They spread out among all the trays.

By: Melody

Melody — Thu, 30 May 2013 03:22:29 +0000

A question about stacking bins in general: Is it possible to keep 2 trays active at once in a stacking system or will the worms always prefer one? They were all escaping to the unused bottom one last summer, so I filled it with bedding, but now that I have the top bin more moist and balanced they’re ignoring the bottom.

By: John W

John W — Thu, 30 May 2013 02:35:03 +0000

They def won’t get stuck going up to the second tray. The hole in the 360 is more than big enough for them.

By: Kim from Milwaukee

Kim from Milwaukee — Tue, 28 May 2013 18:49:29 +0000

Ok, now I’m really confused Bentley. I thought the Euros were the ones who preferred the deep dark regions of the bin and the Reds preferred the shallower regions. How is it the Euros are migrating to the upper bin then?? Are they a ravenous bunch? Do you not have any food for them in the lower level anymore? And do they get stuck when they migrate, seeing that they are the Goliath of the worm community?