Double worm death

[ollyjr]

My wormery had been going for nearly 2 years, with happy worms getting me 4 trays of vermicompost. About four weeks ago the top tray was veritably seething with worms. And then...

Large-scale worm die-off, with no particular obvious cause. Worms in one corner of the tray were still thriving, though very much staying in that corner and keeping close to each other. Worried about this, I did some stirring up of the tray (which had plenty of uneaten food by that point, partly because of worm die-off) to oxygenate it, but that led to a total collapse shortly afterwards.

I removed the entire contents of that top tray, washed it out (with water) and ordered 500g of new worms. in they go, with the next tray down available if they didn't want the emptiness of the top tray (I basically started again with that, with small amounts of soil, very limited food for them and some of the meal that Wormcity sends in the starter pack). Most of them died again pretty quickly (there was some food in the second tray that wasn't fully chewed up). So I emptied both remaining trays, washed them and the sump tray out, and just had the top tray like I was starting afresh. The worms all went down into the sump tray and died in a slimy heap at the bottom.

So, I need to start again. But I don't want to condemn another load of worms to an early death, so thoughts/advice welcome.

I think there were 2 likely causes: 1) too much food, especially once the original set of worms started dying off 2) heat (the wormery is on the north side of the house, but does get some direct sun from the east). But given that this happened twice, I'm now concerned there may a mysterious factor 3) something nasty that we've put in which is killing them all off. I don't know what it might be - I'm imagining some additive or insecticide that was in something we put in and is still lurking there in the plastic, though we don't dump flowers in so I don't know what it could be. Is factor 3 likely, given that I've cleaned out (though not thoroughly scrubbed) all 3 of our trays? And if I do need to give them a more thorough clean, I imagine that using lots of chemicals/disinfectant would be a bad idea.

[WillyWorm]

Hi, the most likely reason for a sudden mass death is the worm bin getting over heated. Try to provide more shade on the eastern side. Another reason is insecticide and the most common way for that to be introduced is via shop bought flowers, these are regularly treated with insecticide to prevent our homes getting invaded with bugs.
I think your problem is heat, buy a cheap thermometer (a high/low thermometer if possible) and monitor temperatures for a few days.

Post again if the above does not work.
Willy

[WillyWorm]

The fact that the worms in one corner of your tray are thriving would definitely indicate that your problem is down to the heat.
Willy

[wormcity]

I agree with Willy about the heat

This whole year has been just weird and I've found that the worms have gone from comatose to ravenous practically overnight.

The fact that you have had a successful wormery for 2 years and nothing has really changed tells me that it is an outside influence rather than anything you have put into the bin

Ronnie