I was having trouble seeing, can’t tell if they’re little mites, some sort of springtail, etc.
I definitely wouldn’t use any strong chemicals, probably a good idea to stop things from crawling all over our chams, but the chemicals could do far more harm in the long run. My chams have had ants(the harmless variety) crawl all over them when they got into their enclosures, which I put an end to, but even with that the chams didn’t seem to care much.
I think your problem is that the wood is dead, dried out, and stripped of its bark. At least it looks that way, if I’m wrong I apologize for the assumption. Dead/stripped/sterilized wood is a perfect target for all sorts of insects/fungi. Most being harmless so no need to be alarmed, but can lead to annoying situations like this. Wood boring beetles are another one we’ve seen in dead wood. Things like mushrooms are grown by sterilizing wood/media first making it easier for them to take hold. This means mold and other things that are usually kept in check by a competitive balance, can get out of hand fast. That said, all of our branches will eventually either rot away or dry rot to the point they fall apart and get consumed by something. It’s just that having a freshly cut branch with maybe just a rinse and or sun bake will last much, much longer without problems than one that has been cooked/sterilized and/or stripped of the bark.
Hope that helps a little
