The problem of economic dispatch is the minimization of the total cost of production by satisfying the demand of the load. The resolution of this problem is a way of managing an electricity production system taking into account the constraints of equalities and inequalities, in other words it is to find the optimal production for a given combination of units in operation. The appearance of meta-heuristic methods which are part of artificial intelligence, has effectively contributed to solving this problem. Bee colony optimization is a very recent family of meta-heuristics. Its principle is based on the behavior of real bees in life. Bees have properties that are quite different from those of other insect species. They live in colonies, building their nests in tree trunks or other similar enclosed spaces.
In this paper, we will apply the optimization by colony of bees in test systems of different sizes with the aim of minimizing the cost of production of electrical energy by taking into account the effect of the valve points of the power plants. In order to see the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, it has been compared with other algorithms in the literature.