Not able to transmit keys across SSL socket in Java

Hi, I have established an SSL socket between two machines . I created a DES Key on one machine using Keygenerator class and generated the key using generatekey(). This returns an object of type Key. I want to tranmit this key to the other machine using the SSLSocket . I am able to convert the key to a string to send it through the SSL Socket but Im not able to convert the string back to a key Datatype at the other end.

Any ideas or help regarding this?

Thanks