They're not portrayed very accurately. Ants are among the hardest workers in the animal kingdom. Ned and Ted just have others gather their food and they sit around all day doing nothing.
Also, why does one have an English accent while the other has a New York/New Jersey accent?
That's kind of the joke there...they're atypical ants, and turn the old "Grasshopper and the Ant" story around. xD As for their accents, um...that's never explained. They seem to have always lived together, so I don't know why they would have picked up such different accents, but it's just the way they talk, and the voices suit their personalities. Maybe they hung around with some bugs from the New York/New Jersey area and others from England, or heard those speech patterns from humans, or *somehow* picked them up when they were young and have spoken thus ever since. *shrug*
I like you, Um. I like largeness...share