I just saw the biggest bee I have ever encountered. It was literally almost the size of my thumb. Clearly we are returning to the Carboniferous era. New investment strategy: I have just placed a bid on eBay for 17 tanker trucks full of deet.
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Probably just a carpenter bee. Now that you have moved further South, you should be seeing more of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_bee
Oh yes, carpenter bees. Those things scared the bejeezus out of me for the first couple months I was in DC. They're pretty harmless, though. The males don't even have a stinger, and they only bother you if you bother them.
Unless it was a particularly large bumble bee, I suspect what you saw was a cicada killer, which is a type of wasp rather than a bee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_killer_wasp
I've lived in the metropolitan DC area for decades and don't recall ever seeing a carpenter bee. I have seen cicada killers pretty much every summer (though it does seem early in the year for you to have seen one already).
I've seen carpenter bees as far north as Philadelphia. This map has them up the east coast all the way to MAine.
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20m?kind=Xylocopa_
Evidently there are many species, so what you know as a carpenter bee might not live around DC.
...hmmm, that is not the species map I wanted.
Just wait until you catch a glimpse of the DC roach. Just keep an eye on the dog at all times.
This species lives from Florida to Maine, out to Kansas and Texas.
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Xylocopa+virginica
I bet it's just that Megan hasn't lived around wood for a few years.
Hmm, maybe not having heard of carpenter bees before I mistook some for being large bumble bees.
Be easy on the carpenter bees, the housing crisis has made life tough on them.
Oops, looks like you were already outbid by some guy called "EMH".
I kid, I kid.
Are you sure it was a bee? Maybe it was a hummingbird moth.
The 10 year "warming hiatus", followed by the recent drop in all measures of global average temperature may be a far better, primary sign of the coming ice age.