Interesting problem...we have some goldens that are pretty light setters, but having virtually nothing is a bit odd. When the bees were flying, did you notice them in your trees? Did you look at the pollen sacks to see if they were actually gathering pollen? The pollen could have been dry and not viable. I don't think lack of pollenizers is an issue at all. That golden tree should really be all you need. Golden is an excellent pollen source. Based on what you said, I don't think it was frost. Your pears were ok and you didn't have honeycrisp...and HC is a tough little bugger. What about hot temperatures in the month or so after bloom? That could cause an ethylene response to cause them to abort. Same thing with carbaryl...carbaryl with warm temps is even worse. Did you cut open any of your fruitlets to see if they had seeds? As for competitive pollen sources, I wouldn't worry too much. Bees like apples. We don't worry about mowing dandelions...and we have a thousand acres of fruit trees.

Though each plant makes a lot of seed pods, I don't get a great germination rate from home collected seed (it ain' much better for store bought either!). Seedling hollyhocks don't like being transplanted either so you have to move on it when they are still small. The easiest way to grow them is to prep an area where you want them - deep, loose, dark, rich soil with some slow release fertilizer. Rake away all the leaves so that lots of sun shines on the area. I like to mound it up but you don't really have to. Sprinkle the seeds all over it. Make sure it gets watered every other week - but be careful, they do tend to rot. They like to sprout late in the fall or during the winter for me. The little plants kinda stay small all winter long and then take off once the days start getting longer and warmer. Once you have a clump growing you can thin them out to keep up the airflow and to give them space to spread out. If you keep the mound tidy and rake away all the leaf litter in the fall you can keep new seedlings sprouting. The mature plants eventually fail but the cluster can go on forever with new seedlings sprouting each winter. They do suffer from a rust (all of mine now have it, along with the little Malva's), it doesn't kill them but it does slow them down. They also always have leaf miners. You can constantly remove the leaves that have the squiggle patterns on them or just learn to live with them. Japanese beetles love them, but you can cut down the bloom stalks and wait for the beetles to go into decline (usually a month or so). In a good summer the hollyhocks will rebloom over and over. They like lots of sun and rich soil in my experience - but I have seen old established colonies growing in poor soil where they seem to bloom better. I can never get the seeds to sprout in poor soil.

A lot of Annuums don't sprout for me above 75 degrees. I don't know if that is common or not. Just my observation. Might have something to do with moisture in the soil ,of heat causing humid conditions that are rotting your seeds. I've found my Tepins,Pequins or other semi wilds do better by just putting them in a pot,barely covered in a room temp. window. I was having germination problems with Wilds,be it rare or common stuff and decided to just let them do their thing in a south facing window in a 4 inch pot with plastic wrap loosely placed on top-not wraped to seal the pot. They started sprouting 100% instead of 1%. Worth a try.

I'm in my third year of successfully growing chiles, including Bhut Jolokia, which it looks like chillilover is also growing. This year, I keep the room temperature up between 75 and 80. Last year, I had them in my unheated cellar, which was about 64 degrees (in Connecticut). I kept the plants on a 16-18 hour light cycle, with LOTS of lighting. I used a bank of 3 shop lights holding grow bulbs, and lined the white reflectors with aluminum foil. I used a large cardboard box, and made a chamber to close the plants in, and bought a cheap space blanket from WalMart to line the box. This gave me MAXIMUM light, which really helps them grow. One thing that you want to be careful of is not to overwater them. Chiles don't like wet feet. Water your plant when it is dry, not before.