Hot July Weekend in the Garden

I had some time to get the tomatoes cultivated and set up all of the tomato cages.  I have some small green tomatoes on a few plants.

I also got my potatoes cultivated and hilled.  They are somewhat sparse as the seed potatoes were a bit rotted and completely sprouted when I got them in the ground.

I was also able to cultivate the gourds I had planted, which were full of grass.  The Honda mini tiller that I bought a few years ago makes this task much easier and quicker.

My grapes were under attack from Japanese beetles.  I had noticed some a few weeks ago and sprayed the American/French hybrid grapes, which suffered the most damage from these beetles in the past.  I didn't spray the American grapes -- Concord and Norton -- because they suffered little damage before.  This weekend though I found the beetles all over those grapes as well, as you can see from this group of beetles having way too much fun on my Concord grapes.  I sprayed all of the grapes with five gallons of Sevin.
I had the chance to check both bee hives this weekend and I was going to take pictures but forgot to put the memory card back in my camera before heading to the hives.  One hive (the South one) seems to be queen-less now -- no brood capped or uncapped that I can see, and the numbers aren't nearly what the other hive is.  They seem to be filling much of the brood area with nectar.  The North hive is going strong with two mediums full of honey on top and comb between each box that was packed with honey.  The process of taking the hive apart for inspection broke the comb between the hives and sent the honey dripping everywhere.  The bees in that hive were more agitated that usual with all of that going on.  I took switched two frames from the brood areas of the two hive hoping that this would give the weak hive the materials to make a new queen.  I could not actually see uncapped brood in the North hive either, but there was a lot of capped brood and no queen cells, so I am assuming there was some uncapped brood there that I wasn't seeing.  I plan to check the hive again next week to see if the bees are making queen cells to replace their queen.  If not, I may order a new one.  My smoker skills have improved as I kept the smoker going well through both inspections, using less paper for starter and more cedar chips packed in for fuel.