Vast volumes of raw data are generated from the digital world each day. Acquiring useful information and chief features from this data is challenging, and it has become a prime area of current research. Another crucial area is knowledge inferencing. Much research has been carried out in both directions. Swarm intelligence is used for feature selection whereas for knowledge inferencing either fuzzy or rough computing is widely used. Hybridization of intelligent and swarm intelligence techniques are booming recently. In this research work, the authors hybridize both artificial bee colony and rough set. At the initial phase, they employ an artificial bee colony to find the chief features. Further, these main features are analyzed using rough set generating rules. The proposed model indeed helps to diagnose a disease carefully. An empirical analysis is carried out on hepatitis dataset. In addition, a comparative study is also presented. The analysis shows the viability of the proposed model. © 2021 IGI Global. All rights reserved.