While feeding my worms the other day, I saw that the one bin had these guys in it. Are they friends or foes of the worms? This particular bin is a rubbermaid bin, set on the ground. It always has the lid on it. Towards the top there are tiny 1/32" holes for air drilled into the side. When I had this bin in my house, fruitflies could still come in and out of those holes, so I taped them closed and then used a pin to prick the holes so they were even smaller. That solved the fruit fly problem. I guess I'm concerned somehow that these grubby looking things are feasting on the worms, but I can't quite tell. Any ideas are appreciated. I have checked various other vermicompost troubleshooting guides but they mostly talk about flies as problems, and these things are much too large to be maggots.
I'm not sure what those are, but they don't look carnivorous. Try putting some next to a few worms and see what happens. Then you'll know and can take appropriate action.
Thank you for the reply. I did a little more digging (haha) this afternoon and discovered that these are actually Black Soldier Fly larvae, voracious composters, and can co-exist with the red wiggler worms peacefully. So, that's very good news. I had removed about a dozen of them and quickly returned them to the bin, giving them an extra portion of stuff to eat.
No, I'm not putting meat in the bins!! According to the one site I read (a thread here) and another site here) it turns out that not only are the larvae beneficial, but the flies only live but a couple of days just to reproduce. Apparently these larvae are used to break down hog and cow manure and renders it close to odorless in a very fast time. Additionally, the larvae can be used as chicken feed because they are 'clean' and have a high fat content. The flies aren't nuisance flies... they are poor fliers, don't care to come into the house, don't feed, etc.
This link: Black Soldier Fly Implies that you are not compositing well. I suppose that means that the bin is not getting hot? Shooting from the hip I really think there are 2 main composting approaches: Focus on bacteria which means attaining high temperatures, or just let 'whatever' happen. I really think that both can be effective. The link also suggests that BSFs are preferred to house flies, and I can believe that. Can you just place some sticky traps around the compost area to reduce fly populations in general?
Thank you for the link, tochatihu. I suspect you are right, that they are referring to hot piles when they say it's a symptom of poor compost. In the case of vermicomposting, you don't want a hot pile, or you'll kill the worms. One thing I gathered indirectly from your link as well as a couple of others I read is that the bin may have too much moisture. It also may be time to get pull out some castings in the event the bin is becoming a little toxic or whatever happens if the castings have been setting too long. I agree with your assessment... BSF's are preferred to houseflies. In general, there are no flies around the compost... I haven't even noted any BSF's but I suppose that's just a matter of time. I have a small hot-pile in the vicinity, but how hot it gets is another question. There are no BSF larvae in that pile, but one day I did see a creature similar to that in FL_Prius_Driver's picture...
