Hi Jonas
Haven't heard the one about burlap to get worms to go down. I tried window screen with fresh bedding and food for the worms to go up. I waited a month and still had a ton of worms on the bottom. The next thing I'm trying is putting food in toilet paper tubes and they should climb in the tubes. Keep an update on how well this works with the burlap.
Kath

I use a home made stacking system made from Rubbermaid totes. I placed the second bin on top of the first bin 5 weeks ago, and there are still worms in the lower bin. It takes time, especially if there is still food in the vermicompost, which there most likely is.

I've heard of doing it the other way around from what you're doing. Since these are epigeic worms, their instinct is go to up. Put half of the compost in a different bin and put burlap and food on top. What others have said is that after a few days they take those worms off and start again, slowly getting the majority. I think it would be great to see if there really is a difference! I'm also thinking you should put some fresh shredded newsprint in with the food so it's not 100% food - I think they need a place to hang out between feeding. I've also heard of using the mesh bags that onions or oranges sometimes come in, rather than burlap.

I've tried the ziplock bag method, but only for getting recently hatched babies out of compost the adults have already been taken out of. I hand sorted the adults out and then waited a few weeks. I put the VC in a clear ziplock, sealed all but one corner and waited between 6 and 8 hours. I then got the babies that had moved towards the opening out and did it again a few weeks later. I read that the worms emerge from the cocoon between 30 and 75 days after the cocoon is made/laid(?). Because of the design of the ziploc, I had to prop the one end open with some tissue. I opened less than a quarter of an inch. I think I continued for 6 or 7 weeks and gave up and used the stuff. I did get > 75 babies out of the effort.

You might try something similar but larger scale for your compost. The idea is to have fresh air coming in only at one small location. As the oxygen content goes down, they go in search of more and end up near the opening. I'd never leave them contained like that for more than 8 hours and I always gave them a break in between. I didn't want to kill off the bacteria that is one of the main reasons for doing vermicomposting! I'm not sure how you'd set it up on such a large scale. I've got some large bags that I got frozen produce in from Costco that have zippers. They're not big enough for all your VC based on the photo, but maybe you could do this for part and burlap for part. It's a lot more work and require multiple 'sessions', but I think it would be a lot faster at getting the adults out than the burlap. If you're interested in numbers of worms, the sooner you get the adults out, the sooner your waiting time for emerging from cocoons starts. (Personally, I think it would be more fun than the burlap ;-)

Then at some point, you decide you need the VC now for your garden and just sacrificed the cocoons!

As I'm thinking about it, you might try a large (preferably white) garbage bag, with the VC at the very bottom and loosely secured with a twisty tie at the top. This would give them some distance to travel and make it easier to get all of them. Lay it flat so they don't have to go uphill and spray the top half of the bag so they don't dehydrate along the way. If you try any of these, let us know how it goes!! I wish I had some VC ready to harvest so I...

One method that people have used to force the worms down is to expose the top to light. This will cause the worms to burrow. Scrape off the top 1/2 inch or so of the compost, then wait for the worms to go deeper. Eventually they will go through the burlap. I don't know how well this would work in practice. When I take the lid off of my bin, the worms don't have to go very deep to escape the light. Poking around in the top 1/2 inch or so will force them down deeper.

Your VC looks very nice! Mine is almost like that, not as dry. Puppy looks interested - wondering what you hid?

As Sbryce, said, they will bury down thru the holes to get away from the light. I've used this method (using a garbage bag punched full of holes) a number of times now. It's actually my preferred method. Don't put too thick a layer of compost and worms on the burlap, they have to sense the light in order to get away from it.

Thanks for the input so far I was kinda counting on the light to help out I think I will probly have to remove a layer at a time

I have done the dump on the floor under the lights harvest last winter it worked ok It really wasn't that bad to sort 40 pounds of compost this load isn't quite that much probly 20 pounds and I have already used the winter compost in the garden so I'm in no real hurry here