Ants in our kitchen

We have an ant infestation in our kitchen. Please provide recommendations for Permaculture solutions to get rid of the ants in our kitchen. They dont bite as far as we can tell.

I use a sugar/ diatomaceous earth blend - roughly 1 part sugar with 10 parts d.e. The sugar draws them, and the d.e. sticks to them and they take it back to their colony, where it kills all of them. I just put a thin line of it along whatever path they're already walking along, so it's easy for them to find. It takes a few days, but it works.

Depends onnthe type of ants.

For all types, remove easy access to things they think delicious.

For big black and ones that make a nest, borax on the floor where their paths are works well.  It's from the laundry aisle and we just sprinkle the powder down.  It gets on their feet, tracks back home, makes their home uncomfortable or poisonous.

Not recommended with little children or pets in the house as it is a mild biocide.

I find peppermint oil deters them beautifully. I just wipe it across their paths and, if I can locate it, at their exit/entrance. I've not found the diatomaceous earth effective, unfortunately.

Some helpful tactics:

1. Wipe down the walls and counters where they walk daily, with your favorite cleaning solution. This disrupts the pheromone trails that they follow.

2. Bay leaves wedged in window and wall cracks and crevices where they enter. The ants in our area don’t like that smell.

3. A fine layer of diatomaceous earth in the areas they frequent. A vinyl applicator bottle like they sell at “beauty “ supply stores works great to blow the powder into crevices.

Diatomaceous Earth (DE) sprinkled on the path will make them move to a new location.  Find out where they are coming in and put down lots of it.  They will probably be gone in a few days.   If they start coming in at a new place, treat the new area.  

I would also check to see where they are heading when the come in.   If they have found a food source, you will want to get that cleaned up so they no longer have a reason to come inside.   Wipe up all their trails with hot water to get the ant smells off.  Treat with something fragrant that you like.  Essential oils or some other fragrant herbal smell.

They will change their ways if you change the environment.

I use Borax and sugar; they come for the sugar, but can't help but also get some Borax.  A day or two and they are gone.  I have not found this successful with the teeny-tiny hard to see kind of ants, but it works with your regular, run-of-the-mill ants and with carpenter ants.

In addition to the suggestions for a borax/sugar solution, you might also try a similar borax/peanut butter mix for ant colonies seeking protein. Certain species of ants may prefer one solution over the other according to the colony's needs.

Years ago, I found the most simple way to get rid of an infestation in the kitchen.

I clean my counter tops with a spray bottle with 50/50 vinegar/water.

I accidentally found that when ants walked on my countertop after being cleaned they died.

If you know where the infestation is you can spray the hive or whatever that is called for ants.

Outside I pour used dish water on the mounds. Vinegar can also be poured on the mounds.

We had a solid line of small odorous ants eating a mixture of borax (roach powder) and sugar for 3-4 weeks without success. The mixture tended to dry out so more had to be mixed up and added every few days.

After trying that, I got some Terro indoor liquid ant bait and the ants were gone within a week. The safety datasheet says the contents are sucrose (40-70% by weight) and sodium borate (3-7% by weight). It's basically the same thing I tried making but at the perfect ratio and it didn't dry out. The baits are small flat plastic tubes. Cut off the end and put it where the ants are running. They can climb in the end of the tube to get the bait.

Not sure where this falls on the permaculture scale, but if borax is OK, this should be ok, too.

My house was built in 1850, and the foundation has cracks.  Ants, mice and other critters are able to get in while I don't have access to these points. The ants in the kitchen were coming in from somewhere under the porch floor and gaining access through the cracks.  I have to say, I did not find the "crack" about a clean house amusing.

We mix some Borax with some maple syrup (because that's the only kind of sweetener we have) and it works beautifully. I put some of the liquid in a juice bottle cap and put it down wherever I see any ants.

Barbara Simoes wrote: the teeny-tiny hard to see kind of ants

here in tropical ant paradise, these ants can be really, really hard to get rid of. I have known people to keep all open food in the refrigerator (including and especially the sugar bowl) and then undertake frequent cleaning with really smelly cleaning products (vinegar, oils, etc) to encourage them to go elsewhere. They seem to mostly be an urban thing (in my house out in the suburbs I've never had them, but in our shop, which is in a more central area of the city, they come in every year) and take real effort to get rid of.

I'll ditto what M. Rives said above. The Terro liquid bait traps (sugar and borax basically) are easy and work very well for the very common odorous ant house infestations (at least in NW USA). Borax is rated less toxic than table salt, and is a common and fairly traditional laundry additive, so I have no worries about it. Just let the ants feast and don't disturb them. They disappear in a couple days.
Regarding other uses of borax: It's a safe substitute for chlorine bleach. I and wife used to soak cloth baby diapers in it to remove stains and freshen them before washing. Works very well for this. The last I read, it's also still listed in at least one European pharmacopeia, as it has traditionally been taken internally in small quantities as medicine.

We have the tiny tiny carnivorous/protein loving ones in the house....sometimes.
They are very seasonal, part of the summer and don't show up every year...clean kitchen or not they find something.  
We can't leave a skillet with the slightest bit of oil or it attracts the hoards.
I don't see any way to block an entrance and have not considered borax recently.
We wipe them off the stove or counters and rinse them down the sink.
Sometimes I wipe them off the stove to the floor and tell them to RUN!!!

In the past we've had a tiny ant with an acrid smell when brushed but these have no smell at all that I've noticed.

One thing I would add is to decide whether you are trying to repel the ants or get them to carry bait back to the colony. Doing both at the same time can work against you. If I were using bait, I would leave their trail alone for a few days and put the bait right alongside it. Let the workers find it and keep returning. Once activity stops, then clean the trails and work on sealing the entry points.I would also try to identify the ants before doing much else. If they are fairly large ants, especially if you notice them more at night, I would check around the sink, dishwasher, windows and any other damp areas. Carpenter ants often turn up where there is moisture-damaged wood, and fixing the moisture problem is more important long term than simply making the visible ants disappear.