Two weeks already, time flies when.... :)

Maybe not many replies because your post covers all bases.

The missing two worms, or 20%.

It is possible worms die in systems all the time but we don't notice it because we are not inspecting and as observant as you so we don't catch them in the act. I'm not sure I believe that statement.

I imagine you checked and the worms were not hiding in the removed plastic cover. That leaves only two things that could of happened. Natural or otherwise die off occured to the two. Or they crawled out the air hole. Sensing more oxygen drew them to the hole and then they were free. I don't particularly like any of those three choices and still, as you do, want to know what happened to those two worms. :-)

Two worms did disapear so I don't know we can say it was not the power bars. But then again no sick worms were found. If two sick worms were found, and maybe they were sick before they decomposed in to oblivian, then we might feel there was results. But would not all of the worms of gotten sick? A pile of sick worms is actually what we did want to see. Or 10 healthy worms. 8 worms is infuriating.

Maybe the end result of "The Great Protein Bar Mystery" is the resulting increased interest in flow through bin design.

Maybe not many replies because I am the only person who has a case of past pull date power bars sitting in the corner of his bedroom.

As for worms dying in the bin, but we never see them, of course that is true. If worms have an average lifespan of 1 year, and there are 2000+ worms in an average bin, that is 6 worms dying every day. They just don't crawl to the surface and die where we can see them.

But mine do. And only in one bin.

As for the interest in flow through designs, I have wanted to have a flow through all along. Now that mine is well established, and I no longer have worms escaping out of the bottom, I'm pretty jazzed about how the FT is working. In another 6 months or so, it is going to be hard to keep it fed.

Sbryce, I keep a light layer of damp newspaper on top of the the bedding on my flow through. I have only had it going for about three weeks. One or two mornings when I woke up I found one or two worms that have crawled onto the newspaper that look odd. Lumpy. Bigger on one end than the other. Or maybe with a fold in them. I have searched the bin twice now and only found the one or two on top in the morning.

I don't put a lid on unless the night is going to be quite cold (the bin is on my back porch). When I do put a lid on, I don't find the sickly worms. It has happened three times now, each time the worms have been right at the top. I have taken the sickly worms out and put them in another small bin. Some of the worms have died, some are still limping along.

Is this what you were experiencing?

What I am seeing (not nearly as much as I used to, BTW) is similar. I see what looks like the front end of a normal worm, but without a tail. Instead of the 5 inch worms I am used to seeing, some of them are only about an inch long.

I have seen that a couple of times too. Weird. And always at the top of the bin? At least that is where I see them.

I usually see them crawling up the sides of the bin. That may be because they like to crawl up the sides of the bin when they die. It may be because I don't see the ones that are buried in the bedding.

Today I was poking around in the bin that seems to have the most trouble, and I saw more dying worms down in the bedding.