No, not unwarranted. Wasps are much more likely to sting, and their sting is caustic rather than acidic. As a beekeeper I used to get stung a reasonable amount and after a while you stop reacting to the protein element that causes all the swelling and it is fairly mild. Wasp stings hurt like hell and go on doing so for ages. I used to take out wasp nests in populated areas in a bee suit with an aerosol can of knock down killer in each hand. One I sprayed around to keep off the flying ones, the other I used to drill a hole in the nest, those in the nest come and try to repair and defend it and get a good dose of poison.
As you say they do a lot of good, clearing up all sorts of rubbish, I would only take out nests in places like next to a children's playground, or right in the middle of a housing estate.
but how far away is reasonable?
Well, you don't want to attract more near the house, and you don't want to be so far away it is another lot that find it, but wasps will travel 300 yards easily and as much as half a mile for something good. I don't know how big your property is, can you manage 150 feet away?
Honey hunters used to set up a feeding station like that on a high pole with a bit of honey instead of sugar, then lie on the ground under it. Bees make a beeline for home and are clearly visible against the sky, so they knew which direction to go for the nest. I don't know if that would work using sugar for wasps. There are other things that would be attractive to a wasp but not a bee, I have watched a wasp cut a piece out of a fish on a fishmonger's slab and carry it off, and I quite like them when I see them hunting caterpillars among my cabbages. Have you no idea what the wasps are after? It is not always food, they like soft wood to turn into paper for building their nests.
