I bet it is snake mites. Snakes mites are different colors depending on their life stage. They are clear as babies almost invisible, and get reddish black when engourged with blood from feeding. If you BP was in the water dish, that is a good sign of mites. If it was something like wood mites which wouldnt be in coco fiber or some other harmless bug, your snake wouldnt be soaking. And motes dont stick to the scales, they go to places where they can feed on the snake like the fold of skin under the chin, or in the eye sockets. They will get between the scales too. And if there was enough of them on the snake that you saw them running all over and crawling on you, it sounds like you got an infestation. Better get some PAM, paper towels and zip lock bags. You are in for a 'fun' ride for the next 3 months.
Try to get some on a paper towel by running the snake through a wet paper towel. Then squish one of the bugs on your fingernail and see if it pops and leaves a blood spot. Do this with one of the dark colored ones.
And it wouldnt come from the substrate. As far as i know from the videos i watched of the Reptile Prime being made and bagged, there is no snakes in the area and snake mites are not native to the US. It's the main reason i order all my substrates online plus it is cheaper. But i have never gotten snake mites from substrate. The one time i had to deal with snakes mites, i got it from a hitchhiker i brought home and luckily it only affected Luna and not any of the other snakes.
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