Retrieve multiple messages from SQS

I have multiple messages in SQS. The following code always returns only one, even if there are dozens visible (not in flight). setMaxNumberOfMessages I thought would allow multiple to be consumed at once .. have i misunderstood this?

 CreateQueueRequest createQueueRequest = new CreateQueueRequest().withQueueName(queueName);
 String queueUrl = sqs.createQueue(createQueueRequest).getQueueUrl();
 ReceiveMessageRequest receiveMessageRequest = new ReceiveMessageRequest(queueUrl);
 receiveMessageRequest.setMaxNumberOfMessages(10);
 List<Message> messages = sqs.receiveMessage(receiveMessageRequest).getMessages();
 for (Message message : messages) {
      // i'm a message from SQS
 }

I've also tried using withMaxNumberOfMessages without any such luck:

 receiveMessageRequest.withMaxNumberOfMessages(10);

How do I know there are messages in the queue? More than 1?

 Set<String> attrs = new HashSet<String>();
 attrs.add("ApproximateNumberOfMessages");
 CreateQueueRequest createQueueRequest = new CreateQueueRequest().withQueueName(queueName);
 GetQueueAttributesRequest a = new GetQueueAttributesRequest().withQueueUrl(sqs.createQueue(createQueueRequest).getQueueUrl()).withAttributeNames(attrs);
 Map<String,String> result = sqs.getQueueAttributes(a).getAttributes();
 int num = Integer.parseInt(result.get("ApproximateNumberOfMessages"));

The above always is run prior and gives me an int that is >1

Thanks for your input