What happened to my mealworms?!

[SampyArctica]

Hey guys, I've been raising my own mealworms for maybe six months or more now and I've had no problems at all until now.

When I checked on the container they're in a couple of days ago, everything was fine, chucked in a couple of carrot pieces as per normal and closed the lid on them again. Then today I noticed there was some condensation build up inside the container, so I pulled it out from where I usually keep it and was shocked to find that the bottom half of the container seemed to be quite moist with small white worms kind of resembling maggots, but not quite, that I'd never seen before. The container was also crawling with tiny white mite-like critters.

What happened? Did I do something wrong? If I transfer the worms I have into another container, will that be alright to keep raising and farming them, or are they 'contaminated' now and it'll just happen again if I do a sort of clean out?

Below are a couple of pictures of the container.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

The colony is suffering from too much moisture and/or too little ventilation. The moisture creates conditions favorable to invaders. The small mite-like critters are grain mites, they can only reproduce with humidities greater than 60% or so. These mites frequently pop up around grain products whenever they get too moist. It would be difficult to know what the other larval things are without a better picture or even a microscope. I would pick out all of the beetles, pupae and larvae and start over. The container you have is good because you can actually see the damage that occurred in the bottom layer. In the future watch that and if it gets wet, dark or otherwise moldy, change what you're doing to lower the moisture inside. Feed low moisture vegetables (e.g. potatoes, carrots, etc.) and never put a lid on it that restricts air flow in any way. Finally, bake or microwave the new wheat bran prior to adding it the colony to kill off anything hitch-hiking inside. I'm sorry this happened but I think you can get right back on track with them. Good luck!