Ant(h)ropomorphic Hoovering*

Finally got round to the second bout of hoovering up the annihilated ants in the kitchen. Most died Monday night, when I liberally squirted ant killer around the part of the skirting board from which they were emerging. I got to them before more than a very tiny number had opened their wings and flown off in search of new colony sites. Rapid reaction due to noticing the suspect pile of sawdust below said run of skirting board: these have appeared before just before a party of ants started trooping around the kitchen (to recap further... The ants tend to start appearing in numbers, well into double figures, in the kitchen in the spring. They troop up the kitchen units from their various points of ingress, help themselves to whatever they can find by way of sustenance, and then go off and tell their friends. [Very Tom and Jerry, though I've not yet seen one at the front blow a bugle! As in Pup on a Picnic.] They have in the past climbed up an outside wall and in through the slight gap around the drainage pipe from the sink, through the back of the units to the kitchen floor. Now they seem to have a route under the floor of the laundry/pantry (in fact the nest may be under the floorboards there) and through the brickwork and over the top of the skirting board. They do not come in, or over, anywhere where food or crockery is stored. It's usually raining when they arrive. Evidently, a bit like school kids, they need indoor playtime on wet days. I've attacked them from both inside the house and out with ant powder, but have never fully eradicated them. To be quite honest, finding the odd one or two in the kitchen doesn't bother me anyway. I leave them be. They leave me be.The local spider [I never kill spiders! Shelob, I just love Shelob.] population needs something to keep it occupied. More than ten or so, however, and I feel they're beginning to take liberties.) So I got to them quickly on Monday and a pile of corpses built up. I left the powder down overnight, covered with a weighted-down newspaper (in case the cats were stupid enough to sample the ant powder), and vacuumed the remains up on Tuesday morning. There's a new pile built up since then. Evidently, there's just enough powder in the interstices of the skirting board to "get" the stragglers.
I do feel rather sorry for them. I know the weather's just this week gone from summer to standard-British-summer and the previous few days of heat had probably spurred them into making their great expansionist move, but outside, even in the wet, would have been a more sensible direction. We may have one potential and unproblematic ants nest, but one's enough. (I felt very much the same about the wasp nest we had several summers ago: the lucky wasps flew in and out of the nest and the house--no problems experienced by either wasps or rest of household--and the unlucky ones left their nest and flew around the house until they died of starvation or exhaustion. We disposed of the corpses. Admittedly, a little care was required if wandering around barefoot. Eventually the wasps died or moved on. At that time, there was no great problem co-habiting. [The invasion of fleas, however, was quite another matter.])
I don't feel guilty about the formic carnage*. Would've done, once. (Wouldn't even kill moths and daddy-long-legses. And that wasn't just because I'm petrified of them.) Makes me wonder, when/if we set off in our own little colony ships what's out in the kitchen ready to swat us. Or feed us kiwi daiquiri jam (that seems to kill 'em off, but they apparently enjoy the process: is too much rum bad for ants?) And how do we know if we're aiming for the kitchen or the back garden?

* Incidentally, not a googlewhack.