New hive question.

[BillyMac]

Hi,
I'm new to beekeeping.   My son and I hived two 3# packs-o-bees on May 1.  It went great, like we new what we were doing  :-D.  We checked for queen release 4 days later.  All was well as both hives had released the queens.   We let the hives alone for almost two weeks when we decided to check for brood.  When we opened hive 1 all we found was pollen stores and syrup stores in the drawn comb.  I found no eggs, brood, or queen (she is unmarked so hard for me to find). I also noticed what I thought were emergency queen cells on the face of the frame. I got concerned and moved to hive 2.  It was a different story.  H2 had many eggs, larva, and even what I thought was capped brood.  I was happy with H2 but very concerned with H1.  I called a local beekeeper and decided to requeen.  He would be checking his hives for queen cells by weeks end and could give me one but I didn't want to waste time.  I was kinda panicked! :-\  I had a queen life flighted from Georgia overnight.  She arrived in good shape and I placed her in the hive.  The workers immediately surrounded the cage and I wasn't sure if they were happy with her or were trying to ball her.  I checked for her release 5 days later with baited breath.  She was released and Holy Cow there were eggs in the comb though it was poorly drawn comb and the pattern was scarce.  The queen is marked and I found her almost immediately.  She was alive and doing her bee thing.  I was quite pleased that we recognized a queenless hive and requeened fairly quickly with good results.  My concern now is that I noticed several cells had two eggs in them.  Is this normal?  Thanks for any info..

Billy Mac

[Brian D. Bray]

A new queen will sometimes lay more than one egg in each for the 1st few days, it quickly straightens itself out. 

1 of the primary rules in beekeeping is to never panic, however when all else fails it does make one feel better.

Congrats on recognizing a queenless hive and putting it right.

You're off to a great start.

[BillyMac]

Thanks for the input.  That makes me feel better.  :-D
Billy Mac