I find all my pears flower pretty early, good cross pollination is more of a issue I think.
After waiting for about 8 years with my tree, I started to graft onto, that's when all turned around.

Beurre Bosc is hardy to at least -25*F (not sure about conversion to Celcius) and supposidly bloom late.

or, how about this idea? A shipovo Mountain ash/pear cross. It is very, very hardy, and makes sweet pears about the size of apricots. A regular Mountain ash acts as a pollinator, but they are supposidly self-fertile as well.

When shopping for a pear, research it's tolerance to fire blight, if the apples in your neck of the woods gets this awful disease...pears catch it too.

Harrow's Delight - from Ontario, is resistant to fireblight and scab.

Warren - hardy to -20*F altho it is originally from Mississippi...(weird) and resistant to fireblight.

Up in zone 2a you get temps well in excess of -20 tho, don't you?

almost a guarantee that we will hit -40 for a few days each year.

Thanks for the heads up on pears David I was going to plant one this year. But if it can't produce here pointless for me. I think I'll grab another apple instead.

This post was edited by CLBlakey on Wed, Apr 17, 13 at 0:39

I agree with Konrad, pears flower early but I've never had blossoms killed by frost. My Ure pear tree didn't do much until I grafted on some (very sour) cultivar that I don't recall the name of right now. Ever since then, the tree rains pears every autumn. Problem is, I don't really get how to ripen them properly, so I snack on some ripe windfalls, but most end up as 20 gallons or so of rotten, wasp-eaten fruit headed for the composter. People sure do get impressed though when you say you are growing pears in Edmonton :)

Pear update: I finally had a small crop (of about thirty small pears) from my Ure and Golden Spice cultivars last year...despite the fact that the Ure insisted on flowering when overnight lows still went below freezing (-5 on at least one night). Problem: I was only able to achieve pollination by hand pollinating with q-tips. Is there another way to attract early pollinators or an easier method for hand pollination? I'll try grafting, but I need to find a cultivar that flowers as early as my Ure.

By grafting or planting more trees. So, from where you got the pollen from?

Since you had fruits from both then freezing wasn't a problem. Most likely they overlapped the flowering, no hand pollination needed or bees got pollen from the neighbourhood, I would let it be and see, not bees! lol. It's pretty normal that pear flowers are not attracting much at all since MUCH better sources are out there for bees, nevertheless, it doesn't need many to do the pollination, you could be waiting for a couple of hours to see one bee or fly, but thats all it takes.

Thanks, Konrad -- you've convinced me not to fret. The pears' flowering did overlap for about three days, and that must have been enough. The 'Early Gold' (not 'Golden Spice'; I checked my records), were very tasty, though a little too sweet for my taste; 'Ure' is kind of yucky.