I bet you thought I would never get to them, right?  There are so many, they may fill up this entire post.  There are first, second and third degree decomposers in your worm bin.  In fact,  it is almost a mirror image of your compost bin.  Did you know that?  No matter what size they are, they all have an ongoing and productive role to play in helping your worms digest their organic wastes you are feeding them.

There are many tiny microscopic  organisms living with each worm that we can’t see.  They are bacteria, actinomycetes, enzymes and protozoa and they aid in the worm’s digestion of it’s food.  They thrive by the hundreds of thousands within a single worm.  These organisms assist in preparing the nutrients to be absorbed and utilized by the worm.   These are the first degree decomposers of the worm bin.

The second degree decomposers are ones that we can just about see and others are very apparent.  The smallest ones are the spring-tails, beetle mites, mold mites, feather-wing beetle and molds.  Spring tails are readily seen in bins that are often too damp or moist.  They are small, white and will tend to mass together,  if there is standing water.  A quick cure for them, if they appear to be taking over the bin to the detriment of the worms, is to add more dry  and shredded paper or leave the bin top off during the bright sunlight.  Rarely have I ever had a spring tail issue here that didn’t resolve itself within two to three days.  Mites are another group that are fascinating.  They are either red or white in color.  I usually see them here when I have inadvertently put too much of a damp organic waste into a bin.  They thrive on dampness.  The sure cure for this is the same as the spring tail cure.  The red mites can and have tried to take over the bin and did pose a threat to the worms.  One trick I have learned over the years is to place old, stale bread into the bin and cover.  The next day the bread will be totally covered on both sides with the red mites.  You have two choices now with this mite encrusted bread: you can place it into a plastic bag and put it into the trash or, if you want to be risky, you can put the bread, buried deep, into your regular compost bin.  I do recommend wearing those Bluette gloves I have mentioned in the past, when you are working in the bin and attempting to fix an issue like mites.  White mites, at least for me, are part of the cycle of decomposition and I have not had a problem with them.  Of all the above my favorites are the molds as they seem arrive overnight and are those bright flashes of color all around the sides, top (or lid) of the bin.  Here they are yellow, green, red, white and purple.  So far I have not seen black.

There are many creatures you will see easily in your bin. They include these: ground beetles, rove beetles, centipedes, millipedes, sow bugs or rolly pollies (aka) sow bugs, snails and slugs.  All of these are normal inhabitants of your worm bin. I also have many types or kinds of spiders. My thinking on them is that if they don’t bother me,

I will leave them alone, too. The slugs here are simply astonishing.  They are up to three inches long and larger in circumference than my thumb!  They don’t ever bother the worms.  The snails are large, too.   I have a photo of their eggs I will include. That way you can identify them them when you see them in your bins.

All of these creatures are working in concert to make your organic wastes fit into that microscopic worm’s mouth. They all have a role to play. They will also teach you more about your bin and how it operates.

To Recap:

> many of the critters you have in the bin you can’t see, but they are there

> the critters you can see are just as helpful as the invisible ones

> the helpers in the bin are many and highly visible to you.

I hope this helps you understand the workings of your bins.

Until I am back again: I hope you are learning from your worms and enjoying them.

~Shel

Who knew that you would have so many other creatures living and working in your worm bin? Not me, when I first began raising worms. Some that you will see are beetles, pill bugs or so called sow bugs (you know those little fellows, who roll up into a ball when you touch them?), snails, slugs and many spiders.  Others that are more discreet are the molds and fungi which will appear about your second or third month into your first bin. They will be either over the top of the bin or around the sides of it. They vary in color to include: yellow, orange, green and even red. To me, they look like flashes of color, over the top of the bin or along the sides.  I will add a photo of one of these, so you will not be alarmed by these changes, if you were not expecting them. Another helper in the bin are soldier fly larvae. These look like armored, small tanks, as their entire body looks like it is plated. They are pointed at both ends and are similar in their functions to the grubs you may also find in the bin. Another name for them is blue fly larvae.  All of these helpers are taking large pieces of particulate matter and making them smaller in order to fit into the worm’s microscopic worm’s mouth.

I have found snail eggs in the bins, which are about 15 times the size of a worm’s cocoon. They are clear in color and clustered together. The slugs I have discovered in the bins can be of truly dramatic size. They help, not hurt, the entire process. Taken all together, these will work in concert, helping the food wastes you are providing for the worms, breaking it all down faster for  your worms to consume. You can think of them as all pre-digesters of that banana peel and apple core you have put into your bin. As you know the worms have no teeth and like birds have their own crop and gizzard to enable them to digest the food waste. I’ll find the photo of the snail eggs for next time around to show you.

Without these organisms the worms would go hungry. All these organisms provide the vital service of the pre-digesting the organic waste which becomes the worm’s food, breaking down large bits of matter into smaller materials.

I have made several attempts to place the photos here for you to see and not had much luck with that. My webmaster is going to look into this and we shall have them here for you next time. I live in hopes of that happening!

I’ll be back in a few days and write abut the digestion and gastrointestinal system of the red wiggler worm.

See you here then!

~Shel