Garden Composter; Mass worm extinction... Why?

[Fab Foodie]

Not being much of a gardener, I have taken some pride in keeping a pretty excellent garden composter going for about 5 years or so.  Grass cuttings and kitchen veg/fruit trimmings.  I've used the resulting compost in pots hanging baskets and this year dug a load into my 3 m2 veg patch.

Now this wonderful bin of decomposing lovliness has been home for millions of worms... every time I add more material,  I give the fermenting mass a stir and delight in the wormy wriggliness.  About a week ago, there were zillions on top of the compost, up the sides and spilling out of the lid.  I didn't thjink much about it, gave the mass a stir, shook the blighters from the lid and carried on. Now 2 days ago I lifted the lid to an unpleasant rancid butcher-shop smell and noticed a huge dead mass of worms on the lid and the surface of the compost covered in dead worms.  I've given a stir and they're 99.9% dead throughout.  All very nasty and a tad sad.
Anybody know why?  No chemicals, no weed killer etc used on the lawn.
No idea.
I miss my worms 

[Wowbagger]

Your brandlings are no more, which is sad.

I can only think that something went in in the last batch of vegetation that they didn't like. I understand that huge wodges of grass cuttings with nothing else makes everything anerobic and unpleasant, although if the grass cuttings are mixed with newspaper then it's OK.

[Fab Foodie]

Wowbagger, I fear you are correct.  For they are brandlings and the smell of late has been more alcoholic (from the fruit and potato peelings) with a waft of silage from the lactic fermenting grass.
I guess I have been lucky over the years.
Must keep stirring more I think.

Cheers FF.

[David Martin]

Mix well with shredded junk mail.

..d

[rogerzilla]

Grass is good for some things though; the heap that has been dormant since autumn had a few too many dead leaves in there, which weren't rotting.  A few grass cuttings stirred later and it's literally steaming, even in the current hot weather.

The current main bin was attracting a colossal number of flies, and likewise the heat from the grass has driven them all away.