Does bi-wings create essentially double the uplift as single wings?
In general, no it does not.

If by bi-wings you mean a biplane then the airflow above the lower wing and the airflow below the upper wing interfere with each other and lift is lost. The loss is kept acceptable if the gap is at least 1.25 times the wing chord, but it is still maybe 20% depending on the design. The advantage of the biplane is that it is light and compact, which at slow speeds can more than compensate for the loss of lift.

If by bi-wings you include tandem wings, then the wake of the fore wing creates a disturbed airflow over the aft wing, reducing its efficiency. This can be minimised by mounting the fore wing low and the aft wing high, but that introduces the risk of superstall at high angles of incidence. The advantage of the tandem layout is that it allows a large range of positions for the centre of gravity, giving high operational flexibility.