Question

She said, "honey is sweet"

Answer 1

Your answer is as follows:

She said that honey is sweet.

Here "honey is sweet" is a universal fact as honey is always sweet and never bitter, salty, etc.

Answer 2

Indirect/Reported Speech refers to a dialogue being told to a third person/reporting what happened to a third person.

Example: Eva said,"I'm ready to go." (Direct)

                Eva said that she was ready to go. (Indirect)

In the above example, when writing in indirect/reported form, the sentence changes according to its tense. Also, modifications regarding certain words like 'this' changes to 'that', 'tomorrow' changes to 'the next day', 'will' changes to 'would', 'can' changes to 'could' and many other words have to be made. Also, if the sentence contains an interrogation, then 'said' changes to 'asked'. Punctuation marks other than a full stop (.) cannot be used in indirect/reported speech.

She said,"Honey is sweet." (Direct)

She said that honey is sweet. (Indirect)