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Nice quotes Might and it seems that the answer to your question could lie in those. But i will give my opinion without studying those here but simple based on the change of Age3>4. Time of elves was over and time of men was starting. Now all magic are more or less connected to elves. Sil, LotR and also Hobbit. Now when elves were leaving the shores of ME, world would take a step to 'more normal' which is world without magic. Also that may be the case with others who possessed 'magic' like Beorn and his descentants. Beorn was a man but he had skills to change his form whenever he wanted and this shows that he was in 'peak' of magic abilities. Now when time moved on and world took a step to normal, that magic faded and it's show in his descentants. They were loosing their power like everything else in ME after III Age. 

You do seem to have an affinity with Beorn The Might.

As the quote you provided above stated Beorn was a Man. Not a Bear or anything else. He has the power to enter a bear shape but whence that power came who can tell? Its ultimate origin has to be with Iluvatar of course. Where did the gift Elves have of being far-sighted originate from?

As for him being a magician I do not see the connection. A magician is someone who pretends to do magic with trivial tricks and so on. He does not actually possess magical abilities.

I am happy to provide my opinion on such things.

However in this are opinions are at variance. I think of the Beornings and any men that live between the Misty mountains and Mirkwood merely 'odd folk' as Gamgee would say. I do not delve further into them than that.

Is anybody still working this thread?

Good idea Olorin, indeed a good one.
Only there is one quote that unfortunately at least in my eyes denies your theory.
As Tolkien said Beorn was a good magician, but still a MAN. There is no mentioning of Maiar blood there, and given that Tolkien always tells you if someone comes from a special line (like that of Dol Amroth with a bit Elvish blood in them) I am sure he would have done so here as well if that were the case. But he does not. As such, I personally conclude that Beorn was a mere Man, who in some way managed to learn how to change his shape. Given the fact that Radagast was calles a master of shapes and hues and given that the two were friends and met at times I personally still guess that it was the brown wizard who was responsible.

Nonetheless good theory and I must add that it is by no means proven wrong. Only that as I said above I personally find it unlikely that Tolkien would omit such information. ;)

Lol, Bear, always like your endings.

Umm, yeah, of course it is possible, but I don't really see why. Tolkien usually never misses out on any important spirits doing stuff in Middle-earth.

As I said, as a good example, take the story of Mithrellas and that Numenorean guy Imrazor. These two didn't do much during their lives, except to marry and to create the line of Dol Amroth. And because their descendants have Elvish blood Tolkien mentions it. So I would except that if some Maia were to also say marry some Northman and give birth to little human-bear creatures, Tolkien would also mention it.

Indeed... it is quite fascinating... problem is that anything one could imagine could not beat Tolkien's stuff. Not because fans don't have a good imagination, on the contrary, but simply because if it really would be that grand it would no longer fit into the LotR universe.
Tolkien himself tried to write a story taking place in an increasingly corrupt Gondor some 150 years after Aragorn's death or smth like that. He eventually abandoned it because he realised that anything he would create from that point on related to M-e would simply pale in comparison with the great battles and alliances of the three precedent ages.

"Others say that he is a man descended from the first men who lived before Smaug or the other dragons came into this part of the world, and before the goblins came into the hills out of the North. I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale."

I always felt that this part stood out the most to me about Beorn.
It reminded me of a lot of myths among indiginous people about shapeshifting and animal-tribe associations. 

But then I found the idea of men originally being this way to be an idea that brought up more questions than answers, perhaps.
There are hints here and there about other shape-shifters in the stories (or at least on some maps).

I think the concept of there being some ancestor of non-human origin is an interesting thought.

Shape shifters changing into Bears is a popular notion with writers. Elizabeth Moon in her Book "The Deed of Paksenarrion" wrote about Master Oakhollow a Kuakgan, a person who heals and maintains nature and knows the languages of animals who according to popular belief in the village in which he lives, turned into a bear at night and roams his Grove. I can also remember that something hinted at old Tom Bombadil turning into a bear at night and that's why the Hobbits were cautioned to not open the windows and stay inside and to not go out.

This is an interesting topic. Personally I never paid much attention to the 'power' Beorn had to change shape and become a bear. In many traditional fairy tales, shape-shifting is not uncommon, and 'The Hobbit' is a book that incorporates such elements of faerie to a greater extent than the rest of Tolkien's legendarium, which is normal, seeing that the book was not at first planned to go into the canon of works.

However the matter can be traced, if somewhat conjencturally, by comparing earlier versions of the Beorn story with that published in 'The Hobbit', and by looking at some notes that Tolkien made on the subject. All these can be found, luckily, in John Rateliff's 'The History of The Hobbit' (HH).

Passages of significance are:

"I can't tell you much more. Whether he is a bear descended from the great bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came, or a man descended from the old men who lived there before Smaug invaded the land and the goblins came into the hills out of the North, I can't say. At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own." - in the earliest draft, published in Rateliff, HH, "Medwed"

"I cannot tell you much more, though that ought to be enough. Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came. Others say that he is a man descended from the first men who lived before Smaug or the other dragons came into this part of the world, and before the goblins came into the hills out of the North. I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale. He is not the sort of person to ask questions of.
At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own." - in chapter VII, "Queer Lodgings", 'The Hobbit'

In the first text there is no suggestion of what the wizard Gandalf (the speaker in both passages) thinks is the true tale of Beorn. However in the early stages of composition of this part of the story, Tolkien clearly considered Beorn (at that time called 'Medwed' to be human, because in some notes immediately following the composition for this chapter, there is a note stating 'let bear be enchanted'. This, as Rateliff points out with examples, would seem to connect Beorn to the older tradition of sagas where we find people magically enchanted to look like bears at certain times. In the second text, however, with Gandalf's suggestion we see in fact Tolkien's desire that Beorn was not a bear, but a man who could take bear shape.

In fact this deduction only comes as a reinforcement of what Tolkien himself said in a letter to Naomi Mitchinson:

"Beorn is dead; see vol. I p 241. He appeared in The Hobbit. It was then the year Third Age 2940 (Shire-reckoning 1340). We are now in the years 3018-19 (1418-19). Though a skin-changer and no doubt a bit of a magician, Beorn was a Man." - from Letter 144

Now that this is established, we must turn to the more complicated question of where Beorn got his power. In the text published in 'The Hobbit' (which I cited above), is not Gandalf's statement: "He is not the sort of person to ask questions of." rather an oblique way of Tolkien telling the readers not to inquire into Beorn's power? Because we have no clear statement of Tolkien among published texts clearly indicated how Beorn got his power. In his earlier posts, The Might suggested that Beorn could have learnt to change shape from Radagast, and I must say there is considerable substance in this possibility. Again we shall look at the old texts and compare them with the published ones:

" 'I am a wizard - I have heard of you, if you have not heard of me. But perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the borders of Mirkwood?'
'Yes, yes: not a bad fellow.' " - first draft of the text, published in Rateliff, HH, "Medwed"

It is a dialogue between the wizard Gandalf (at the time identified by the name 'Bladorthin') and Medwed. Medwed's answer suffered some modification. Here's a later version:

" 'Yes, yes: not a bad fellow I know him well.' " - published in Rateliff, HH, "Medwed"

And, as published in 'The Hobbit':

" 'I am a wizard," continued Gandalf. 'I have heard of you, if you have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?'
'Yes; not a bad fellow as wizards go, I believe. I used to see him now and again,' said Beorn." - in chapter VII, "Queer Lodgings", 'The Hobbit'

While the published text diminishes the connection between Beorn and Radagast, not the same can be said of the earlier drafts: in the first, the missing words 'as wizards go, I believe' in Medwed's answer show that Medwed held Radagast in a good light, more so than in the published text, where he is rather ironical about the whole affair. In the emended draft, Medwed goes on to say that he knows Radagast well, which would imply a close relationship that might include Radagast's teaching Beorn how to change his shape.

On the other hand, this is not said by Tolkien, so we might conclude that he either did not think of the matter himself, or he did not consider the matter needed to be rationally explained. It is in a way the same as with Tom Bombadil. I give two quotes:

"There is of course a clash between 'literary' technique, and the fascination of elaborating in detail an imaginary mythical Age (mythical, not allegorical: my mind does not work allegorically.) As a story, I think it is good that there should be a lot of things unexplained (especially if an explanation actually exists); and I have perhaps from this point of view erred in trying to explain too much, and give too much past history. Many readers have, for instance, rather stuck at the Council of Elrond. And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)." - from Letter 144

"I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently (he first appeared in the Oxford Magazine) and wanted an 'adventure' on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out. I do not mean him to be an allegory - or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name - but 'allegory' is the only mode of exhibiting certain functions: he is then an 'allegory', or an exemplar, a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science [...]" - from Letter 153

It may be that Tolkien expressly wished Beorn to remain a mystery, and while the deductions made above make sense, they in no way represent facts, but merely speculation.