The underworld

A significant part of my early education took place outdoors with my father when he would turn over a large stone and we would peer down to watch the scurrying life beneath: beetles, centipedes, woodlice, worms and of course ants. I did this today and  found an ant colony. (The white coil is a root.)
The image isn't the best but I think you can see the adult worker ants rushing to pick up the larvae (the little translucent blobs) and carry them away to safety. The larvae are the second stage in the development from egg to adult. They will have to pupate before emerging  as fully-grown ants.

Larvae are sticky and have tiny hairs; both features allow them to be clumped together for ease of transport rather than be carried individually. [Cf. sticklebricks!] They are sentient and can attract attention from their attendants by wriggling and even 'begging' for food which is supplied by the workers in  liquid form: essentially the larvae are tiny reservoirs needing constant replenishment.

Warning!
This next bit  might make you queasy if you are of a sensitive disposition. When reading about ant larvae I found that  they are not simply food recipients but can repay the favour in a number of curious ways.

"Having ultra-thin waists (petioles) makes it impossible for adult ants to move solids into their food-processing centers in the hind section of their bodies (gasters). Adult ants can only consume liquids.
Scientists have long known that the worker ants feed all solids to the larvae first for processing. The larvae were thought to chew up, swallow and pre-digest the food, and then regurgitate it back to the workers to distribute throughout the colony.
Recently, however, researchers have shown that in one species of bigheaded ants the workers actually place the food on the surface of the belly of the larvae in a special groove (larvae lay on their backs). The larvae spit out enzymes onto the food, basically drooling on themselves. After a few hours, the workers come back and pick up the slime that results, feeding some of it to the larvae and taking some for themselves. According to videos of the larvae processing bits of fruit fly, the larvae very rarely sip any of the gooey liquid while the food is dissolving; they wait patiently until the food is done and let the worker ants feed them.
Other species of ants resort to feeding on the larvae in various ways. Certain species of ant larvae have special structures that allow the workers to access the internal body fluids (hemolymph), a sort of pump or "tap."
The so-called Dracula ants take things a step further. These rare ants get their name from the fact that they cut holes in the sides of the larvae and suck out hemolymph. Although this sounds pretty gruesome, the larvae survive having holes bitten into them and later become workers themselves.
Another odd behavior of this group is that the workers carry the larvae to their food and place them on it, rather than carrying the food to the larvae, as most other ants do. For example, instead of cutting up a caterpillar into chunks and carrying it into the nest to feed the larvae, Dracula ants carry the larvae out to the caterpillar. Once they have fed, the larvae become food themselves."
Taken from Wild About Ants  a blog by entomologist and Consult-Ant Roberta Gibson.