This paper discusses selective harmonic elimination (SHE) in a pulse width modulated (PWM) inverter using two novel algorithms developed by the authors. The task of harmonic elimination together with output voltage regulation is framed as an optimisation problem, and then solution of switching instances are computed through the newly developed algorithms. The two optimisation algorithms are derived based on a colony of honey bees. Computed and measured results on a prototype PWM inverter shows that the SHE is successfully achieved at different steady-state values of reference output voltages. Further, the optimisation schemes are compared with traditional Newton-Raphson (NR) method and genetic algorithms (GA). It is shown that the proposed schemes are on a par with existing methods. © 2009 Institution of Engineers Australia.