From what I've read:
Various sub-species of bees maintain different quanities of brood over the winter, generally the lighter the larger brood area, the darker, the more likly to cease laying until spring.
Queens seem to restart about mid/late-December/January.
Queens tend to lay in the center of the warm cluster and work outwards as the climate improves and center brood spaces fill.
My queen questions are:
When do queens start to lay in drone cells?
Drone cells within the used winter brood area are filled first, right?
When could one expect the queen to lay on exclusively drone frames (like pierco or the like?)(weeks/months/temp dependant?)
Drones require two weeks to mature following their hatch.
My Drone questions are:
Is maturity slower in colder temps?
Though the temp maybe too cold for flight, could drones be hand picked from frames and seman collected for insemination (provided of course they are mature)?
Does a drone require a flight(s) to be viable to mate? even for seman quality for instrumental insemination?
So in short, when Am I going to get 'em, when can I use 'em and how can I use them?
There is always more than one way to skin a cat, that's of course if you're into eating cats.