We investigated experimentally the magneto-optical and dielectric properties of magnetic-nanoparticle-doped nematic liquid crystals (ferronematics). Our studies focus on the effect of the very small orienting bias magnetic field B bias , and that of the nematic director pretilt at the boundary surfaces in our systems sensitive to low magnetic fields. Based on the results we assert that B bias is not necessarily required for a detectable response to low magnetic fields, and that the initial pretilt, as well as the aggregation of the nanoparticles play an important (though not yet explored enough) role.