Hi,

I started my worm bin a couple of months ago. After some errors, my worms are
actually doing well, and I see some nice fat ones each time I check. The
problem is I also have tons of fruit flies, and lots of tiny little brown moving
dots. The brown dots aren't so bad unless they get on me, but the fruit flies
are really annoying.

I set up a little container with vinegar and water next to my bin but that
hasn't helped much.

Currently about 3/4 of my bin is very damp like the worms like it, and the last
1/4 has dry paper and cardboard in shreds, this is covered by a loose weave
burlap sack that just lays on top of everything. The fruit flies are still in
the top 1/4 of the bin. In order to keep the top 1/4 layer dry, but still water
my worms every day (they seem to do well this way) I have to take the dry stuff
out, water the worms with a spray bottle (and this tends to get the sides wet),
and then replace the dry bedding. However, I have noticed that the dry bedding
that's touching the top of the wet bedding gets damp and there's lots of tiny
little black bugs that are probably tiny fruit flies, as well as lots of those
brown dots. Lately I've been removing the bedding that's bug infested but that
still leaves an awful lot of fruit flies that get trapped between the layers and
lay their eggs.

I'd love extremely detailed information on how to get rid of my fruitflies once
and for all. Preferably without having to restart my bin as the worms are
finally happy.

If I'm supposed to keep a dry layer of bedding, how do I do that and water the
worms daily?

I've also been checking for worms almost daily and this tends to mix up the
bedding and inevitably some of the food gets to the top, but it's hard to tell
because everything's brown by then. This is probably contributing to the fruit
fly problem. How to I check on the worms without adding enticing food for the
flies right at the top of the wet layer? And how often should I be checking the
worms to make sure they're thriving? I've been checking daily because when I
first started I killed most of my worms and had to dig some more up, so now I'm
worried if I don't check I'll miss when something is wrong.

Thanks,

Vania