In this paper, a new modified algorithm is proposed. This modified algorithm is BA/ATS. The main modifications are including negative value into the main equation of the bee algorithm (BA) and integrating adaptive tabu search (ATS) into BA. BA/ATS aims to improve the performance of hybrid BA/TS. The economic dispatch (ED) is set as the main problem to solve with the proposed algorithm. The operation of each generator is limit by constraints. All test results indicate that the overall costs of operation when using the proposed algorithm are better than test results from other compared algorithms. This means the modified hybrid BA/ATS is a good algorithm for the solving the ED problem.