Ants only know about problems at the location that previous ants encountered them. That is, they can't look ahead to problems, and can only report when coming b

Ants only know about problems at the location that previous ants encountered them. That is, they can't look ahead to problems, and can only report when coming back over a path. A good example of this is the ant colony in a Polish nuclear bunker - the ants consistently fall into a ventilation pipe, because there's no pheromone warning signal of the dangerous fall. https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/bizarre-ant-colony-discovered-in-an-abandoned-polish-nuclear-weapons-bunker/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/bizarre-ant-colony-d... And as a side-effect, there's an ant colony with no queen, no larvae, no males, but a continual supply of adult workers.