I'm not very familiar with Alaskan insects, other than mosquitoes, since I'm in South Carolina, but I can direct you to a link where you can sign up and post insect or arachnid pics to have them identified.

Sharon McKenzie

Here is a link that might be useful: Bug Guide

What is the location?

this is something we have never seen in alaska in the 45 plus years we have been here,, and no one we have shown it to has ever seen anything like it.

Would I be stating the obvious if I said it looks an awful lot like a honeybee?

I took a stab on the other forum that it is a Cimbex Sawfly. Scroll down almost to the bottom of the attached page to see a creature that looks an awfully lot like yours! My $.02

Here is a link that might be useful: Cimbex sawfly

This is in the bee family, I'm pretty sure. Not exactly a honey bee, but a bee nonetheless. I just saw one here in Michigan not 3 days ago. If you go to bugguide.net you will find a large variation in the type of bees found in the US.

Here is a link that might be useful: www.bugguide.net

I'm STILL thinking that it's the Cimbex, lol!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Definitely a sawfly.

Well I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that this is not a honeybee. I think the Sawfly guess is correct. There are a lot of flys that are bee mimics.

It IS the Cimbex Sawfly, but sawflies aren't flies. They belong to the Hymenoptera order, thus relatives of bees, wasps, ants, etc. ;-)

Are we confused yet?