Worker ants have very short life spans, so the only way a colony can keep going for long periods of time is if the queen is present and continually laying eggs to create new workers to replace the ones that die. So if you have found an ant nest and remove the queen, then yes the nest will eventually die out unless it is one of the few ant species that may have multiple queens in the nest. If you are finding winged queen ants outside a nest, then these are new queens that are escaping from their old nest to go off to establish new colonies of their own. Once they mate and find a suitable nest site, they will break off their wings and never leave. They will lay a few eggs to create their own workers and then these take over the care of the new nest. The queen may live for several years, but again the workers usually only a few months at most. If you are trying to set up your own ant colony, it is very difficult to make it work. Ideally you will need a queen and workers, plus the right soil or other substrate as well as the proper food. Don't bother buying an ant farm kit from a store or over the internet. The coupon they give you for the ants will only get you a few workers (no queens) which will only live a few weeks or months and then die off. I hope this answers your question.