I've always seen it from this perspective: If two animals can mate and produce an offspring that it will also be able to reproduce and be fertile than they are member of the same species. This is condition is sufficient but not necessary.
(ex a donkey and a horse can mate but will produce a mule which is sterile and so in my classification donkeys and horses are not anymore the same species).
So given the cloned male ants in turn mate with the queen they were all along the same species.
This is different, the queens mate with two different types of males. Ibericus to produce new fertile queens and structor to produce infertile workers.
mules are not always sterile
Also, mules are the result of a male donkey and a female horse. The other version (male horse and female donkey) is called a hinny in English. They have different characteristics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny