I gave a presentation on pollinator gardens today and one of the attendees asked about “armored bumblebees,” something I’ve never heard of. She described them as about twice the size of a regular bumblebee, but with a hard shell! I went online and found nothing. She was from the Northeast USA. I’m wondering: Was she describing Longhorn Ash Borer?
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Definitely sounds like some kind of beetle
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Could they be Euphoria inda?
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Must be some fuzzy beetle.
Perhaps she’s remembering a particularly vivid dream. I had a dream a while back about a species of swan that folds completely flat for convenient storage and transportation 
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I agree with most of the other replies – this seems like a sort of beetle. A glaphyrid, cetoniine, or something similar could be the culplrit.
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Maybe a Bumblebee Scarab Beetle (Lichnanthe vulpina)?
Eastern Carpenter Bees are often confused with bumblebees. They can be very large, and they have shiny, not fuzzy, abdomens that could pass for armor…
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Xylocopa are enormous, utilize buzz pollination, have hard portions that look armored, and are wonderfully impressive. Any where you are?
edit to note that I just saw @danly’s response. Yes, sounds like this is it. They are so wonderfully noisy, too!
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Carpenter bees were my first thought, too. Most people I talk to have no idea they’re not bumbles.
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Original poster says the attendee was from Northeastern U.S., where Xylocopa virginica are common. I love your description of “wonderfully impressive” and “wonderfully noisy.” It can be startling to hear them, and my reaction upon seeing one for the first time was “OMG that’s the biggest bumblebee I have ever seen!”
They are easily confused with Bombus Impatiens (Common Eastern Bumblebee.) If not for iNat, I would still be calling them bumblebees…
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/91297598
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99150749
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/98418888
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I have not seen those but had two different types visit my garden in Centro, a solid black type that was Neoxylocopa which was as big as my thumb and X. subvirescens which though slightly smaller had a more robust shape and was able to gather a prodigious amount of pollen on its legs.
Where we have moved I have not yet seen one but it is not high season for them, plus they are intentional plant visitors (direct flyers, not meanderers) so it may take some time to find where they are again.
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