It was formerly called Enterobacter agglomerans, or Erwinia herbicola and is a ubiquitous bacterium commonly isolated from plant surfaces, seeds, fruit, and animal or human feces and can be found throughout a honeybee's environment.

It has been used to control fire blight, a plant disease caused by bacterium Erwinia amylovora, that is a common problem in pear and apple crops.

[6][4] Environmental factors influencing the growth and spread of Pantoea agglomerans include winter chilling, good sunlight exposure and quality air circulation.

In terms of sunlight exposure, fruit trees generally grow best in warm, moist and well-lit environments, thus Pantoea agglomerans must also be able to survive under these conditions to effectively protect healthy plant hosts.

The bacterium and its lipopolysaccharide were also found to induce macrophage activity to regulate homeostasis, giving Pantoea agglomerans healing properties when consumed orally.

[23] Using the biochemical panels commonly employed in medical diagnostics it is difficult to differentiate Pantoea agglomerans from other species of the same genus or from members of related genera such as Phytobacter, Enterobacter, Klebsiella, and Serratia spp.

[24] This has led to confusion surrounding its pathogenicity as molecular studies based on DNA sequencing have disproved the identity of several clinical isolates initially reported as Pantoea agglomerans.

[4][25] For the precise identification of Pantoea agglomerans non-culture based methods such as Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) or Whole-Cell MALDI-TOF MS are recommended.