Multiple eggs in bee cell

Many cells in the brood chamber of one hive contain more than one egg. Can they hatch this way or does it mean more trouble for the colony? It wasn’t doing very well anyway.

There are several possibilities here and all of them indicate trouble within the hive. Something has to be done since it is doubtful if the situation can right itself. Since the colony wasn’t doing very well, it could be that the queen is laying eggs faster than the hive bees can prepare and expand the brood nest, causing the queen to lay the second egg in some cells. If that is the case, the colony should be all right if strengthened. Check for the presence of the queen and also for any normal, capped worker cells.

It could also be that the colony has a drone-laying queen and if that is the case, the colony should be requeened.

Probably the worst possibility is that the colony has become hopelessly queenless and one or more workers have taken over the responsibility of laying eggs in the absence of the queen. These eggs, should they hatch, will only produce drones.

Since the hive is weak and you are not sure of the cause of the problem, your best procedure here would probably be to unite this colony with a queen- right colony using a sheet of newspaper. Remove the cover and inner cover from a good colony and spread a sheet of newspaper with some starter slits in it over the tops of the frames. Set the troubled colony on top so that only the newspaper separates the two colonies. The bees will gnaw through the paper and the two colonies will gradually become united.