>leave a small crumb of food on my windowsill
>a few days later, notice a few ants crawling around it
>over a few hours their numbers increase slightly
>check later and they are all gone again, save for maybe 4 or 5
>after another few days pass, look at the windowsill again
>there are now dozens of ants crawling back and forth around the crumb
>pick the crumb up and throw it in the trash
>the ants continue swarming back and forth around the spot where it was
>watch them for a few minutes, they don’t seem to be doing anything besides walking back and forth
>come back 30 minutes later and they are still just running back and forth and bumping into each other over and over again, now densely packed in an even tighter area
>60 minutes later, I remember and check the windowsill
>the ants are now all gone, except for 2 or 3 that are still wandering aimlessly
Can someone explain this to me? Why do ants seem to just hang around one area for extended periods of time? What are they trying to accomplish? And why does it seem to take them so long to make decisions? It took 2 or 3 entire days between the first few ant "scouts" seeing the crumb and the larger group arriving. And after I removed the food, instead of quickly leaving back to wherever they came from, they took over an hour of lingering to realize there isn’t any food and to go away.

Why are ants so fucking stupid? It’s amazing that they manage to accomplish anything at all, considering how slow they seem to be at processing changes in their environment.