Ants colonies work much like a factory. There is division of labor in order to accomplish multiple tasks. The queen lays eggs, the workers provide food, and larvae and pupae replenish the populations. The workers themselves will separate their roles based on many things. Younger workers tend to work feeding the queen and her young, while older workers tend to leave the nest in search of food and defend the colony. Workers seem to get to choose their roles based on personal preference, environment and other workers.
Ants are very good communicators. But these insects don’t use sound to transmit ideas, they use chemicals. These chemicals are known as pheromones and these are how ants work together. Ants use their antennae to sense these pheromones, and each pheromone represents a different situation. There’s a pheromone for “Danger, we’re being attacked!”, and one for “I’ve found food!”, etc.
For example, lets say that two ants have found the same food source. One ant will come directly back to the nest, while the other will take a longer route. They both will secrete pheromone to denote the path to the food for the other ants. Two more ants will follow the two pheromone paths, also leaving pheromones along the way. The ant following the shorter path will get back before the other ant. This will leave the shorter path with the stronger pheromones of two ants, while the pheromones on the longer path will be starting to wane. The pheromones on the shorter path will get stronger and stronger as more ants follow it, and soon it will become the only path that the ants take.