What's wrong with my tomatoes?

Maybe try self pollinating? Last year on the West Coast in Canada I really noticed a bee shortage. I have a feeling it has been the Colony Collapse Disorder which scares and upsets me. I had to resort to self pollinating my zucchini's and cucumbers because I kept waiting and the female flowers would just shrivel up and die and soon my vegetables would follow. I had lots of flowering plants that normally attract lots of pollinators but there were just none to be seen.

After I pollinated myself I was getting much more out of my plants. My tomatoes and peas weren't a problem so something was helping me out but people having issues with lack of pollinators might want to give that shot. If you are able to, setting up some hives would be a great way to help out, planting shrubs to attract pollinators, and/or attracting carpenter bees by drilling some 1/4-1/2" holes in some wood in a sheltered place.

 

Just found this: Temperatures for optimum tomato fruit set 18.5 - 26.5° C (65-80° F)

Above 95F (35C), you aren't going to get fruit set at all. Existing tomatoes will grow, but your plant will take a siesta from fruit set until weather cools a bit.
The fact that other veggies set fruit well in our friend's garden would show that he does not have a shortage of insect pollinators.

Tomatoes are native to the highlands of Mexico and don't like extremes of hot or cold.

You can use blossom set spray, use a paintbrush to pollinate or simply shake the vine gently to improve fruit set.

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/info_tomtemp.htm

 

Honeybees are having a hard time of it right now, what with colony collapse disease, Varroa mites, pesticides such as Sevin dust.

If there are any bees to be found, you can try attracting them with super sexy shrubs.
Bee balm, Russian sage and other plants send out a fragrance that bees can't resist.
Then if these shrubs or herbs are near your garden, the bee says, "Oh! Here's a tomato flower; I might as well feed here as well!"

Bumble bees were the native bee here before European honeybees were introduced. They seem to be making a big comeback and are the main pollinators in my garden, although I see the odd honeybee or butterfly now and then.

We are (so far) still north of the Africanized honeybees. They are mostly in Florida but venture into Georgia's southern reaches. But here in the cooler uplands of north Georgia, our winters are too cold and damp for them. Their nests are too exposed to the elements compared to the sturdier more sheltered nests of European bees. Not only that, Africanized bees don't save enough honey to survive until the return of spring flowers here. Their little bee brains are tiny and inflexible. Their instincts work okay in hot sunny Florida, not well enough in somewhat less hot Georgia.

So it looks like I need to do everything I can to make the bumble bees feel welcome in my garden next summer.

 

About bees...I was surprised to see some this year wandering in the flowers...was glad, too. Several years ago the county sent out a truck to spray and "kill all the mosquitoes" and it wound up killing our neighbor's bees, tho' I don't remember a single mosquito leaving. This older man/beekeeper kept about 20 hives and only 2 survived - for a time, with 1 surviving after the winter. He went to a home after that. oh my, didn't mean to get into all that...
But about bees - it makes me sad to see something deeply wrong is happening there.

 

i grew tomatoes and squash this year.

next year i'm doing more tomatoes and im going to do a pollinator garden