This article presents a new strategy based on multistage fuzzy PID controller for damping power system stabilizer in multimachine environment using Honey Bee Mating Optimization (HBMO). The proposed technique is a new metaheuristic algorithm which is inspired by mating procedure of the honey bee. Actually, the mentioned algorithm is used recently in power systems which demonstrate the good reflex of this algorithm. Also, finding the parameters of PID controller in power system has direct effect for damping oscillation. Hence, to reduce the design effort and find a better fuzzy system control, the parameters of proposed controller is obtained by HBMO that leads to design controller with simple structure that is easy to implement. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is applied to single machine connected to infinite bus and IEEE 3-9 bus power system. The proposed technique is compared with other techniques through integral of the time multiplied absolute value of the error and figure of demerit. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 234-245, 2016