The artificial bee colony is a popular evolutionary algorithm that exhibits strong exploration ability but slow convergence. This paper proposes two new updating equations to boost the performances of employed and onlooker bees, respectively. In the new updating equations, two intelligent learning strategies give bees a chance to learn from individuals with better performances. New control operators are also utilized to balance global and local searches. Second, we define a new search direction mechanism to overcome the oscillation phenomenon in employed bees. Finally, an intelligent learning mechanism is proposed to accelerate the convergence rate of the worst employed bee. To test the effectiveness of our algorithm, a series of benchmark functions and two industrial problems are utilized. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm performs more favorably on both theoretical and practical problems.