Yes. The queen doesn’t give orders, she just lays eggs. All the other ants decide individually what to do, based on what they can see and smell in the area. A c

Yes. The queen doesn’t give orders, she just lays eggs. All the other ants decide individually what to do, based on what they can see and smell in the area. A colony without reproductives is still a colony, even if it is probably dying. Ants recognize each other as friendly by smell, so the ants in the lower colony weren’t fighting each other. They were doing all the ordinary ant activities, just in a location that wasn’t great for the overall survivability of the whole colony (no food down there to bring back to the queen, for example).