Worm composting is new so I wanted to start with a cheap bucket. For my small indoor space, this seemed like the best option. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I am pretty proud that the setup cost me like $9!

Here's my set up:
Bucket 1: (Top) home for my worms with bedding and food; holes drilled in it for castings and leach to drip through. Castings don't really fall though; bedding is organic compost obtained from my local community garden.
Bucket 2: Also drilled holes plus placed a mesh screen cut to sit in the bottom of the bucket, but not sealed. Screen just sits on base of bucket. The worms are some how getting under the screen.
Bucket 3: (Bottom) Drip bucket for leach; works pretty well except I am finding maybe 100 worms at a time in this bucket! This happens every few days. They cluster together on the sides of the leach catch bucket. No idea what they are working on down there since there is no solid food. Just liquid leach!

My question is what are they doing down there in bucket 3 when their food is in bucket 1? They all seem healthy and wiggly down there in bucket 3. I don't think any of them have drowned. They cluster so it's fairly easy to pick them up and move them back to bucket 1 but it's annoying. I thought about sealing the screen down in bucket 2 but I don't want any chemicals to get into the leach.

I don't feed them much maybe 1 - 1 1/2 lbs of chopped or blended scraps every 10 days or so. Scraps are rinds, peels, coffee grinds, eggshells, etc. No citrus. Maybe I should feed them more?

Thanks for your insight!

You could manually transfer the worms where you want them. I don't know why they are behaving this way. I use a single bin worm farm so don't have any experience with tier bin systems.

My idiot worms always escape and crawl around on the basement floor until they turn into worm jerkey!

Are they earthworms or wrigglers?? Because earthworms like to burrow down deep, but wrigglers will go upwards to eat. I am wondering if you have earthworms?