Whilst they can smelt iron and copper and the like, they arn't able to make coal, which is a bit problematic since they can only get wood via starting with it, or trading for it

I notice they don't have access to battle axes, and thus can't cut down trees

Oh how's this species work?

Cool. I am interested in how you handled them.
Did you remove the whole caste system element that is normally there for antmen? Or did you do something with that.
I made an antman mod for the classic edition. Although, I didn't develop it as far as I wanted to due to getting really busy.

It kept the caste system and had rare queens who layed a bunch of eggs but if they died the fort was basically over. Although, it required DFHack to turn one of your ants into a queen so you could get more outside of immagrants I also reworked their skills a bit.

Since they are smaller making custom tools to allow mining and wood chopping is important for them though.