Nano-sized magnetic Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 ferrite having a high heat generation ability in an AC magnetic field was prepared by bead milling. A commercial powder sample (non-milled sample) of ca. 2.9μm in particle size did not show any temperature enhancement in the AC magnetic field. The heat generation ability in the AC magnetic field improved with a decrease in the average crystallite size for the bead-milled Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 ferrites. The highest heat ability in the AC magnetic field was for the fine Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 powder with a 15-nm crystallite size (the samples were milled for 4h using 0.1mmϕ beads). The heat generation ability of the excessively milled Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 samples decreased. The main reason for the high heat generation property of the milled samples was ascribed to an increase in the Néel relaxation of the superparamagnetic material. The heat generation ability was not influenced by the concentration of the ferrite powder. For the samples milled for 4h using 0.1mmϕ beads, the heat generation ability (Wg −1 ) was estimated using a 3.58×10 −4 fH 2 frequency (f/kHz) and the magnetic field (H/kAm −1 ), which is the highest reported value of superparamagnetic materials.