What kind of bee is this???

Question

i was outside swimming and this HUGE bee landed next to me. it was the biggest one i have ever seen. it was at least 3 to 3 1/2 inches long. it was mostly black but had smaller line like designs of off white like pale yellow. it also had big attenna's and it seemed to have furry like area behind its head it aslo had a very large stinger . i live in minnesota and i have never seen one of these things before.

Answer 1

Possibly a carpenter bee, but they're usually smaller.

Answer 2

If I was that close, I would be running for my life.

Answer 3

3 inches is too large for a bee.  But there are wasps that are that large.

Here is one.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/94183

The "stinger" on wasps is their ovipositor.  All female wasps have one, but on some it is kept inside the abdomen,  males do not have one.  In some wasps the ovipositor is modified and used as a stinger,  both for defense and for killing prey. The yellow color on most wasps is a warning color, as you can imagine, your 3 inch wasps does not need anything to warn others about messing with it so it can be mostly black.  The most common wasp of this size I am familiar with is the tarantula wasp.  It is a metallic blue in color with orange wings.  It stings tarantulas then lays an egg inside the paralyzed spider.  After it buries the spider the young feed off the immobile spider until they are mature and emerge to start the cycle over.  If you wish to search for your wasp this site shows many.  If it looks like yours without the stinger it may be a male.  Be patient, it take awhile to load all the pictures.

http://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&k...