What bugs are good ?

I have two compost bins - one is full and was used last year and into this year ... the compost seems to be breaking down quite well - going black and at bottom is crumbly - however, once this bin was full I cut up a large cardboard box to put a 'lid' on it inside .... when I looked last week the cardboard has almost all gone - there are loads of wood lice eating it ! and still lots of tine tiny flies when I open the lid - where I come from we used to call these fruit flies but probably different names all over - should I now just keep the lid on and let them get on with their work, or are they actually undesirable in the bin ? ... if so, what can I do to get rid of them?
In the new bin, which only has around 6-8 inches of stuff in , I saw a huge slug crawling up the side of the bin - really big, as long and as thick as my middle finger and a light green colour - ughhhh !! couldn't take that out - should it be there ?
Thanks for any help .... Val

 

They are fine. Fresh material on the heap should (i.e. you should aim to achieve!) very high temperatures, this helps kill diseases and seeds and greatly accelerates the composting process.

After that (and over winter usually) the temperature drops and all sorts of critters (e..g worms) finish off the process.

Adding cardboard to the heap is fine, but you need to keep a balance between the Green and Brown (i.e. not green, woody, stalky, paper/cardboard) materials. Too much green (e.g. lawn mowings) will just make a soggy mess, too much Brown and it will take years to rot down.

 

Hi Kristen .... this bin is now finished and full - I just put the thick cardboard on the top of it as I thought it would keep some of the bugs out ! .... my second bin is coming along nicely and should be full up befopre winter sets in and then hopefully I can use contents of first bin next Spring .... I see you are from Suffolk - I am from Norfolk, although I live in North East ... but always a Norfolk girl at heart

 

Why do you want to keep the bugs out? They do the work.

 

I wanted to know which ones were good and which ones bad - I don't seem to remember having this many last year ....

 

More is better as far as i'm concerned. Seems more established.